It had been dark, too, on the hill, but with a
feeling of space and height and freedom. If Charles had been a little
different--but then, he did not really want her; he was making a study
of his sorrow, he was gazing at it, turning it round and over, growing
familiar with all its aspects. He was an artist frustrated of any
power but this of feeling and to have given him herself would simply
have been to rob him of what he found more precious. But she and
Francis Sales were kin; she understood him: he was not better than
herself, perhaps he was not so good and he, too, was unhappy, but he
did not love her for those qualities of which Charles Batty had talked
by the Monks' Pool, he wove no poetry about her: he loved her because
she was pretty; because her mouth was red and her eyes bright and her
body young: he loved her because, being her father's daughter, her
youth answered his desire with enough shame to season appetite, but
not to spoil it. And she thought of Christabel as of some sick doll.
Dinner was a strange meal that night. Caroline's chair was empty, and
the sighs of Sophia were like gentle zephyrs in the room. Henrietta's
silence might have been interpreted as anxiety about her aunt and
Susan informed the cook, truly enough, that Miss Henrietta had a
feeling heart.
It was only Rose who could have explained the nature of the feeling.
She was fascinated by the sight of Henrietta, her rival, her fellow
dupe.
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