“Oh, my dear----” If she could stop it.... An inspiration came. “I knew a girl once who might have done what you’re doing, only she wouldn’t. She gave the man up rather than hurt her friend. She _couldn’t do anything else_.” “How much was he in love with her?” “I don’t know _how much_. He was never in love with any other woman.” “Then she was a fool. A silly fool. Didn’t she think of _him?_” “Didn’t she think!” “No. She didn’t. She thought of herself. Of her own moral beauty. She was a selfish fool.” “She asked the best and wisest man she knew, and he told her she couldn’t do anything else.” “The best and wisest man--oh, Lord!” “That was my own father, Mona, Hilton Frean.” “Then it was you. You and Uncle Robin and Aunt Prissie.” Harriett’s face smiled its straight, thin-lipped smile, the worn, grooved chin arrogantly lifted. “How could you?” “I could because I was brought up not to think of myself before other people.” “Then it wasn’t even your own idea. You sacrificed him to somebody else’s. You made three people miserable just for that. Four, if you count Aunt Beatie.” “There was Prissie. I did it for her.” “What did you do for her? You insulted Aunt Prissie.” “Insulted her? My dear Mona!” “It was an insult, handing her over to a man who couldn’t love her even with his body. Aunt Prissie was the miserablest of the lot. Do you suppose he didn’t take it out of her?” “He never let her know.” “Oh, didn’t he! She knew all right. That’s how she got her illness. And it’s how he got his. And he’ll kill Aunt Beatie. He’s taking it out of _her_ now. Look at the awful suffering. And you can go on sentimentalizing about it.” The young girl rose, flinging her scarf over her shoulders with a violent gesture. “There’s no common sense in it.” “No _common_ sense, perhaps.” “It’s a jolly sight better than sentiment when it comes to marrying.” They kissed. Mona turned at the doorway. “I say--did he go on caring for you?” “Sometimes I think he did. Sometimes I think he hated me.” “Of course he hated you, after what you’d let him in for.” She paused. “You don’t _mind_ my telling you the truth, do you?” ... Harriett sat a long time, her hands folded on her lap, her eyes staring into the room, trying to see the truth. She saw the girl, Robin’s niece, in her young indignation, her tender brilliance suddenly hard, suddenly cruel, flashing out the truth. Was it true that she had sacrificed Robin and Priscilla and Beatrice to her parents’ idea of moral beauty? Was it true that this idea had been all wrong? That she might have married Robin and been happy and been right? “I don’t care. If it was to be done again to-morrow I’d do it.” But the beauty of that unique act no longer appeared to her as it once was, uplifting, consoling, incorruptible. The years passed. They went with an incredible rapidity, and Harriett was now fifty.