He kissed her hand, and held it.

'Francis, don't. You mustn't spoil things.'

'I haven't said a word.'

'Silence is good,' she said.



5

And she knew she could be silent for ever. Restraint and a love of
danger lived together in her nature and these two qualities were fed
by the position in which she found herself, nor would she have had the
position changed. It supplied her with the emotion she had wanted. She
had the privilege of feeling deeply and dangerously and yet of
preserving her pride.

There was irony in the fact that Christabel, hinting at suspicions for
which, in Rose's mind, there was at first no cause, had at last
actually brought about what she feared, and if Rose had looked for
justification, she might have found it there. But she did not look for
it any more than Reginald would have done; she was like him there, but
where she differed was in loyalty to an idea. She saw love as
something noble and inspiring, worthy of sacrifice and, more
concretely, she was determined not to increase the disaster which had
befallen Christabel. Sooner or later, in normal conditions, her
marriage must have been recognized as a failure, but in these abnormal