'Oh, I don't mean that any one is unkind to me or uses me badly,' said
Mary. 'I only mean that my life is empty when Maulevrier is away, and
that I am always longing for him to come back again.'
'I thought you adored the hills, and the lake, and the villagers, and
your pony, and Maulevrier's dogs,' said, Lesbia faintly contemptuous.
'Yes, but one wants something human to love,' answered Mary, making it
very obvious that there was no warmth of affection between herself and
the feminine members of her family.
She had not thought of the significance of her speech. She was very
angry with Maulevrier for having held her up to ridicule before Mr.
Hammond, who already despised her, as she believed, and whose contempt
was more galling than it need have been, considering that he was a mere
casual visitor who would go away and return no more. Never till his
coming had she felt her deficiencies; but in his presence she writhed
under the sense of her unworthiness, and had an almost agonising
consciousness of all those faults which her grandmother had told her
about so often with not the slightest effect.
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