“What good? The good it did him was that, it gratified me. At the time he took it he would have made any promise under the sun. It was a condition I exacted just at the very last, before the marriage took place. There was nothing at that moment he would have refused me; there was nothing I could n’t have made him do. He was in love to that degree--but I don’t want to boast,” said Georgina, with quiet grandeur. “He wanted--he wanted--” she added; but then she paused. “He does n’t seem to have wanted much!” Mrs. Portico cried, in a tone which made Georgina turn to the window, as if it might have reached the street. Her hostess noticed the movement and went on: “Oh, my dear, if I ever do tell your story, I will tell it so that people will hear it!” “You never will tell it. What I mean is, that Raymond wanted the sanction--of the affair at the church--because he saw that I would never do without it. Therefore, for him, the sooner we had it the better, and, to hurry it on, he was ready to take any pledge.” “You have got it pat enough,” said Mrs. Portico, in homely phrase. “I don’t know what you mean by sanctions, or what _you_ wanted of ‘em!” Georgina got up, holding rather higher than before that beautiful head which, in spite of the embarrassments of this interview, had not yet perceptibly abated of its elevation. “Would you have liked me to--to not marry?” Mrs. Portico rose also, and, flushed with the agitation of unwonted knowledge,--it was as if she had discovered a skeleton in her favorite cupboard,--faced her young friend for a moment. Then her conflicting sentiments resolved themselves into an abrupt question, uttered,--for Mrs. Portico,--with much solemnity: “Georgina Gressie, were you really in love with him?” The question suddenly dissipated the girl’s strange, studied, wilful coldness; she broke out, with a quick flash of passion,--a passion that, for the moment, was predominantly anger, “Why else, in Heaven’s name, should I have done what I have done? Why else should I have married him? What under the sun had I to gain?” A certain quiver in Georgina’s voice, a light in her eye which seemed to Mrs. Portico more spontaneous, more human, as she uttered these words, caused them to affect her hostess rather less painfully than anything she had yet said. She took the girl’s hand and emitted indefinite, admonitory sounds. “Help me, my dear old friend, help me,” Georgina continued, in a low, pleading tone; and in a moment Mrs. Portico saw that the tears were in her eyes. “You ‘re a queer mixture, my child,” she exclaimed. “Go straight home to your own mother, and tell her everything; that is your best help.” “You are kinder than my mother. You must n’t judge her by yourself.”