Lady Kirkbank admired the _tout ensemble_ in the fitful light of the
fire, the dim grey of deepening twilight.
'There never was a more delicious cell!' she exclaimed, 'but still I
should feel it a prison, if I had to spend six weeks in the year in it.
I never stay more than six weeks anywhere out of London; and I always
find six weeks more than enough. The first fortnight is rapture, the
third and fourth weeks are calm content, the fifth is weariness, the
sixth a fever to be gone. I once tried a seventh week at Pontresina, and
I hated the place so intensely that I dared not go back there for the
next three years. But now tell me. Diana, have you really performed
suttee, have you buried yourself alive in this sweet spot deliberately,
or has the love of retirement grown upon you, and have you become a kind
of lotus-eater?'
'I believe I have become a kind of lotus-eater. My retirement here has
been no sentimental sacrifice to Lord Maulevrier's memory.'
'I am glad to hear that; for I really think the worst possible use a
woman can make of her life is in wasting it on lamentation for a dead
and gone husband.
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