I felt very bad; I imagined that it would be up to me
to propose to Nancy that evening. It appeared to me to be queer
that they had not given me any warning of Nancy's departure--But
I thought that that was only English manners--some sort of
delicacy that I had not got the hang of. You must remember that at
that moment I trusted in Edward and Leonora and in Nancy
Rufford, and in the tranquility of ancient haunts of peace, as I had
trusted in my mother's love. And that evening Edward spoke to
me.
What in the interval had happened had been this:
Upon her return from Nauheim Leonora had completely broken
down--because she knew she could trust Edward. That seems odd
but, if you know anything about breakdowns, you will know that
by the ingenious torments that fate prepares for us, these things
come as soon as, a strain having relaxed, there is nothing more to
be done. It is after a husband's long illness and death that a widow
goes to pieces; it is at the end of a long rowing contest that a crew
collapses and lies forward upon its oars. And that was what
happened to Leonora.
From certain tones in Edward's voice; from the long, steady stare
that he had given her from his bloodshot eyes on rising from the
dinner table in the Nauheim hotel, she knew that, in the affair of
the poor girl, this was a case in which Edward's moral scruples, or
his social code, or his idea that it would be playing it too low
down, rendered Nancy perfectly safe.
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