Mrs Kilbannon was
beginning to think better of her--it was so much more
natural to be a little backward with strangers--when the
moment passed. Their visitor drew herself out of it with
almost a perceptible effort, and seemed to glance
consideringly at them in their aloofness, their
incommunicativeness, their plain odds with her. I don't
know what she expected; but we may assume that she was
there simply to offer herself up, and the impulse of
sacrifice seldom considers whether or not it may be
understood. It was to her a normal, natural thing that
a friend of Hugh Finlay's should bring an early welcome
to his bride; and to do the normal, natural thing at keen
personal cost was to sound that depth, or rise to that
height of the spirit where pain sustains. We know of
Advena that she was prone to this form of exaltation.
Those who feel themselves capable may pronounce whether
she would have been better at home crying in her bedroom.
She decided badly--how could she decide well?--on what
she would say to explain herself.
"I am so sorry," she told them, "that Mr Finlay is obliged
to be away."
It was quite wrong; it assumed too much, her knowledge
and their confidence, and the propriety of discussing Mr
Finlay's absence. There was even an unconscious hint of
another kind of assumption in it--a suggestion of apology
for Mr Finlay.
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