For that
Miss Cardiff was known to be willing to sacrifice the
Thirty-nine Articles, respectable antecedents, the
possession of a dress-coat. Her willingness was the more
widely known because in the circle which fate had drawn
around her--ironically, she sometimes thought--it was
not usual to sacrifice these things. As for Janet's own
artistic susceptibility, it was a very private atmosphere
of her soul. She breathed it, one might say, only
occasionally, and with a kind of delicious shame. She
was incapable of sharing her caught-up felicity there
with any one, but it was indispensable that she should
see it sometimes in the eyes of others less contained,
less conscious, whose sense of humor might be more slender
perhaps. Her own nature was practical and managing in
its ordinary aspect, and she had a degree of tact that
was always interfering with her love of honesty. Having
established a friendship by the arbitrary law of sympathy,
it must be admitted that she had an instinctive way of
trying to strengthen it by voluntary benefits, for
affection was a great need with her.
It was only about this time and very gradually that she
began to realize how much more she cared for John Kendal
than for other people.
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