Alas! all women do not.
In the strangely mistaken code of feminine "honorable-ness," it is
deemed no disgrace for a woman to chatter and boast of a man's love,
but the utmost disgrace for her to own or feel on her side any love at
all. But Christian was unlike her sex in some things. To her, with her
creed of love, it would have appeared far less mean, less cowardly, less
dishonorable, openly to confess, "I loved this man," than to betray
"This man loved me." And it was with almost contemptuous
indignation that she repeated, "What! he told it himself?"
"He did. I first heard it through Miss Bennett, your _prot?g?e,_ who
has come back, and is now a governess at Mrs. Brereton's. But when I
questioned Sir Edwin himself, he did not deny it."
"You questioned him?"
"Certainly. I felt it to be my duty. He says that he knew you in your
father's lifetime; that he was intimate with you both: that you and he
used to sing duets together; in short, that--"
"Go on. I wish to hear it all."
"That is all. And I am sure, Mrs. Grey, it is enough."
"It is enough. And he has been saying this, and you have been listening
to it, perhaps repeating it to all Avonsbridge. What a wicked woman
you must be!"
The words were said, not fiercely or resentfully, but in a sort of
meditative, passive despair.
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