"It isn't because you are _thinking_ of someone else that you can't
marry Mr. Jacks?"
"I am thinking simply of myself. I am afraid to marry him. No
thought of the kind you mean has entered my head."
"But how will it be explained to everybody?"
"By telling the truth--always the best way out of a difficulty. I
shall take all the blame on myself, as I ought."
"And you will live on here, just as usual, seeing people----?"
"No, I don't think I could do that. Most likely I shall go for a
time to Paris."
Olga's relief expressed itself in a sigh.
"In all this," continued Irene, "there's no reason why you shouldn't
stay here. Everything, you may be sure, will be settled very
quietly. My father is a reasonable man."
After a short reflection, Olga said that she could not yet make up
her mind. And therewith ended their dialogue. Each was glad to go
apart into privacy, to revolve anxious thoughts, and to seek rest.
That her father was "a reasonable man," Irene had always held a
self-evident proposition. She had never, until a few days ago,
conceived the possibility of a conflict between his ideas of right
and her own. Domestic discord was to her mind a vulgar, no less than
an unhappy, state of things. Yet, in the step she was now about to
take, could she feel any assurance that Dr. Derwent would afford her
the help of his sympathy--or even that he would refrain from
censure? Reason itself was on her side; but an otherwise reasonable
man might well find difficulty in acknowledging it, under the
circumstances.
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