Her mind was on Caylesham too. She had just read a letter from Anna Selford. It was full of Anna and her frocks. (Much advice was needed--when was Mrs. Fanshaw coming back to town?) It had a good deal to say of Blake and his handsome presents; and it touched on Caylesham with a rather acrimonious note. He had been to see them, and had not made himself very agreeable; really Anna did not see that there was anything to criticise, nor, above all, that Lord Caylesham had any call to set up as a critic if there were. Christine smiled over the passage, picturing so well the veiled irony and the intangible banter which Caylesham would mingle with his congratulations and infuse into his praises. Anna would not shrink nor retreat, but she would be angry and rather helpless before the sting of these slender darts. Memories stamped on her very soul stood out in salient letters, and the face of Caylesham seemed to hang in the air before her eyes. To remember loving is not to love, but it may make all other love seem a second-rate thing. She loved Caylesham no longer, but she was without power to love anyone as she had loved him. Others had his vices, others his virtues such as they were. The blend in him had been for her the thing her soul asked. Time could not wither the remembrance, though it had killed the feeling itself. Not John's displeasure was the greatest price she had paid; not John's forgiveness could undo or blot out the past. John's friendship and comradeship were the best thing the world had to offer her now--and she wanted them; but she wanted them not as the best, but because there was nothing better. She had no thought of blame for Caylesham, nor of bitterness against him. Here her fairness of mind came in--her true judgment of herself. All along she had known what he was and what he gave, as well as what she was and gave. He had given all he had ever professed to give. (She was not thinking of words or phrases, but of the essence of the attachment, well known to both.) If it had not been all she sought, still she had accepted it as enough--as enough to make her happy, enough return for all she had to offer. She would not repudiate the bargain now. Frank had been straight and fair with her, and she would cast no stone at him. Only it was just very unlucky that matters should fall out in the way they had, and that she should be the sort of person she was--a bad sinner, because she could not minimise nor forget--a bad penitent, because she could not feel remorse that the fault had been committed, nor humbly seek forgiveness for it. It had abided with her always--now as a pleasure, now as a threatening danger, as both together sometimes. Even at this moment it was at once the cause of all her sorrow and her greatest solace in the world.