.. because ... she had begun to
care, really to care, for the man to whom she had written that letter
this morning, and this man had scarcely said one word to her, or given
her one glance, beyond such as a brother might give to a sister. There
was the naked truth.
Her mind fled back. She understood a hundred things now. She perceived
that that sudden anger at breakfast had been personal disappointment--not
at all that lofty disinterestedness on behalf of the mother that she had
pretended. She understood too, now, the meaning of those long contented
meditations as she went up and down the garden walks, alert for
plantains, the meaning of the zeal she had shown, only a week ago, on
behalf of a certain hazel which the gardener wanted to cut down.
"You had better wait till Mr. Laurence comes home," she had said. "I
think he once said he liked the tree to be just there."
She understood now why she had been so intuitive, so condemnatory, so
critical of the boy--it was that she was passionately interested in
him, that it was a pleasure even to abuse him to herself, to call him
selfish and self-centered, that all this lofty disapproval was just
the sop that her subconsciousness had used to quiet her uneasiness.
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