And on the other side? There was the greatest difficulty, the greatest
puzzle. She had not failed to understand the roughness of Aunt Maria's
tones, her frightened eyes and the shaking of her hands. It would be very
strange to see an end of him, to know that he would never be Prime
Minister and so forth, to look on at a world devoid of him, to live a
life in which he was only a memory. How were the scales to be held, which
way did the balance incline? She could not tell, and at last she smiled
at her inability to answer the riddle. It would amuse people so much, and
shock some people so much and doubtless so properly, if they knew that
she was sitting in her drawing-room in the afternoon, trying to make up
her mind whether she would rather her husband lived or that he died. Even
there the fallacy crept in; she was not desiring either way; she was
simply looking at the two pictures which the two events painted for her
fancy; and she did not know which picture she preferred. So all was still
bewilderment, all still rocking from the sudden gust that had proceeded
out of dear Lady Mildmay's gentle lips.
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