"Yes," said Katharine, standing up, "I'm so angry that I don't want to
say anything more. I think you'd better go, Aunt Celia. We don't
understand each other."
At these words Mrs. Milvain looked for a moment terribly apprehensive;
she glanced at her niece's face, but read no pity there, whereupon she
folded her hands upon a black velvet bag which she carried in an
attitude that was almost one of prayer. Whatever divinity she prayed
to, if pray she did, at any rate she recovered her dignity in a
singular way and faced her niece.
"Married love," she said slowly and with emphasis upon every word, "is
the most sacred of all loves. The love of husband and wife is the most
holy we know. That is the lesson Mamma's children learnt from her;
that is what they can never forget. I have tried to speak as she would
have wished her daughter to speak. You are her grandchild."
Katharine seemed to judge this defence upon its merits, and then to
convict it of falsity.
"I don't see that there is any excuse for your behavior," she said.
At these words Mrs. Milvain rose and stood for a moment beside her
niece. She had never met with such treatment before, and she did not
know with what weapons to break down the terrible wall of resistance
offered her by one who, by virtue of youth and beauty and sex, should
have been all tears and supplications.
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