She had far too much understanding of the
disapproval and far too much sympathy with it to underrate the probable
extent and depth of it; to a half of herself she was with it, heart and
soul; to a half of herself the impulse that drove her towards Quisante
was something hardly rational and wholly repulsive. What purpose, then,
did Mrs. Baxter's traditional motherliness serve?
There was one person with whom she wished to talk, who might, she
thought, help her to understand herself and thus to guide her steps. For
every day it became more and more obvious that the matter would have to
be faced and ended one way or the other. Quisante was not patient, and he
would not be dealt with by way of favour. And she herself was in a
turmoil and a contradiction of feeling which she summed up antithetically
by declaring that she disliked him more every hour he was there and
missed him more every hour he was not; or, to adopt the Dean's metaphor,
his presence set her teeth on edge and his absence made her feel as if
she had nothing to eat. Morewood might help her; he would at least
understand something of how she felt, if she could summon up courage to
talk to him; they were old friends.
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