"  How  like  you  are  to  father !  You  have  much
more  of  the  Southern  in  you  than  I.  You're  made
to  be  happier  and  unhappier  than  I  am.  I'm  not
unhappy."

"  No — but  I  must  be,  if  I'm  not  happy,"  said
Teresa  quickly.  "  What  is  life  worth,  if  it's  only
to  be  got  through,  a  matter  of  routine  and  duty,
and  always  sacrificing  yourself  for  other  people?
They  don't  thank  you  for  it!  I  would  rather
die  than  live  that  way!  I  will  be  happy,  some-
how."

"  Poor  child,"  said  Nina  suddenly.  "  You're
not  happy  now."

"  No,  but  I  shall  be— I  shall  be!  "

And  she  got  up  and  moved  away,  to  end  the
conversation.
She  disliked  having  expressed  even  so  much
of  her  feeling.  She  disliked  seeming  unhappy.
That  was  to  confess  failure,  and  she  was  by  no
means  ready  to  confess  it.  She  had  a  passionate
conviction  that  things  must  still  come  right  for
her,  somehow,  and  the  impossibility  of  resigning
herself,  ever,  to  a  grey  lot  like  Nina's,  was  ab-
solutely clear  to  her.  She  walked  away  now


262  T  H  E     B  O  N  D

down  the  path  leading  to  the  little  Vie'ze,  think-
ing of  these  things.
There  had  been  a  nominal,  a  partial  and  un-
satisfactory reconciliation  with  Basil  in  the  week
before  her  hurried  departure  from  New  York.
His  evident  misery  had  broken  down  her  first
stony  resistance.  She  could  not  resist  her  own
tenderness  for  him;  all  they  had  been  to  one
^another  spoke  too  strongly;  she  could  not  part
from  him  in  unkindness.  But  the  passion  that
flung  them  into  one  another's  arms  had  not
healed  the  breach,  had  only  deepened  the  wound.
