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sentiment with which she watched her sister instinctively neglect nothing that would make for her submission to their aunt; a state of the spirit that perhaps marked most sharply how poor you might become when you minded so much the absence of wealth. It was through Kate that Aunt Maud should be worked, and nothing mattered less than what might become of Kate in the process. Kate was to burn her ships, in short, so that Marian should profit; and Marianā€™s desire to profit was quite oblivious of a dignity that had, after all, its reasonsā ā€”if it had only cared for themā ā€”for keeping itself a little stiff. Kate, to be properly stiff for both of them, would therefore have had to be selfish, have had to prefer an ideal of behaviourā ā€”than which nothing, ever, was more selfishā ā€”to the possibility of stray crumbs for the four small creatures. The tale of Mrs. Lowderā€™s disgust at her elder nieceā€™s marriage to Mr. Condrip had lost little of its point; the incredibly fatuous behaviour of Mr. Condrip, the parson of a dull suburban parish, with a saintly profile which was always in evidence, being so distinctly on record to keep criticism consistent. He had presented his profile on system, having, goodness knew, nothing else to presentā ā€”nothing at all to full-face the world with, no imagination of the propriety of living and minding his business. Criticism had remained on Aunt Maudā€™s part consistent enough; she was not a person to regard such proceedings as less of a mistake for having acquired more of the privilege of pathos. She had not been forgiving, and the only approach she made to overlooking them was by overlookingā ā€”with the surviving delinquentā ā€”the solid little phalanx that now represented them. Of the two sinister ceremonies that she lumped together, the marriage and the interment, she had been present at the former, just as she had sent Marian, before it, a liberal cheque; but this had not been for her more than the shadow of an admitted link with Mrs. Condripā€™s course. She disapproved of clamorous children for whom there was no prospect; she disapproved of weeping widows who couldnā€™t make their errors good; and she had thus put within Marianā€™s reach one of the few luxuries left when so much else had gone, an easy pretext for a constant grievance. Kate Croy remembered well what their mother, in a different quarter, had made of it; and it was Marianā€™s marked failure to pluck the fruit of resentment that committed them, as sisters, to an almost equal fellowship in abjection. If the theory was that, yes, alas, one of the pair had ceased to be noticed, but that the other was noticed enough to make up for it, who would fail to see that Kate couldnā€™t separate herself without a cruel pride? That lesson became sharp for our young lady the day after her interview with her father.

ā€œI canā€™t imagine,ā€ Marian on this occasion said to her, ā€œhow you can think of anything else in the world but the horrid way weā€™re situated.ā€

ā€œAnd, pray, how do you know,ā€ Kate inquired in reply, ā€œanything about my thoughts? It seems to me I give you sufficient proof of how much I think of you. I donā€™t, really, my dear, know what else youā€™ve to do with!ā€

Marianā€™s retort, on this, was a stroke as to which she had supplied herself with several kinds of preparation, but there was, none the less, something of an unexpected note in its promptitude. She had foreseen her sisterā€™s general fear; but here, ominously, was the special one. ā€œWell, your own business is of course your own business, and you may say thereā€™s no one less in a position than I to preach to you. But, all the same, if you wash your hands of me forever for it, I wonā€™t, for this once, keep back that I donā€™t consider youā€™ve a right, as we all stand, to throw yourself away.ā€

It was after the childrenā€™s dinner, which was also their motherā€™s, but which their aunt mostly contrived to keep from ever becoming her own luncheon; and the two young women were still in the presence of the crumpled tablecloth, the dispersed pinafores, the scraped dishes, the lingering odour of boiled food. Kate had asked, with ceremony, if she might put up a window a little, and Mrs. Condrip had replied without it that she might do as she liked. She often received such inquiries as if they reflected in a manner on the pure essence of her little ones. The four had retired, with much movement and noise, under imperfect control of the small Irish governess whom their aunt had hunted out for them and whose brooding resolve not to prolong so uncrowned a martyrdom she already more than suspected. Their mother had become for Kateā ā€”who took it just for the effect of being their motherā ā€”quite a different thing from the mild Marian of the past: Mr. Condripā€™s widow expansively obscured that image. She was little more than a ragged relic, a plain, prosaic result of him, as if she had somehow been pulled through him as through an obstinate funnel, only to be left crumpled and useless and with nothing in her but what he accounted for. She had grown red and almost fat, which were not happy signs of mourning; less and less like any Croy, particularly a Croy in trouble, and sensibly like her husbandā€™s two unmarried sisters, who came to see her, in Kateā€™s view, much too often and stayed too long, with the consequence of inroads upon the tea and bread-and-butterā ā€”matters as to which Kate, not unconcerned with the tradesmenā€™s books, had feelings. About them, moreover, Marian was touchy, and her nearer relative, who observed and weighed things, noted as an oddity that she would have taken any reflection on them as a reflection on herself. If that was what marriage necessarily did to you, Kate Croy would have questioned marriage. It was a grave example, at any rate, of

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