Lady Cantourne had known for the last twelve months--almost as long
as Sir John Meredith had known--that Millicent loved Jack. Upon
this knowledge came the humiliation--the degradation--of one
flirtation after another; and not even after, but interlaced. Guy
Oscard in particular, and others in a minor degree, had passed that
way. It was a shameless record of that which might have been good
in a man prostituted and trampled under foot by the vanity of a
woman. Lady Cantourne was of the world worldly; and because of
that, because the finest material has a seamy side, and the highest
walks in life have the hardiest weeds, she knew what love should be.
Here was a love--it may be modern, advanced, chic, fin-de-siecle,
up-to-date, or anything the coming generation may choose to call it-
-but it was eminently cheap and ephemeral because it could not make
a little sacrifice of vanity. For the sake of the man she loved--
mark that!--not only the man to whom she was engaged, but whom she
loved--Millicent Chyne could not forbear pandering to her own vanity
by the sacrifice of her own modesty and purity of thought. There
was the sting for Lady Cantourne.
She was tolerant and eminently wise, this old lady who had made one
huge mistake long ago; and she knew that the danger, the harm, the
low vulgarity lay in the little fact that Millicent Chyne loved Jack
Meredith, according to her lights.
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