She felt keenly how wrong all this was, but she dared not interfere. On two or three occasions, when she had ventured, timidly and respectfully, to remonstrate on the subject, she had been chidden with undue violence, and sent sad and tearful to her own room. With Selina she was equally unsuccessful; only, instead of scolding, her lively, thoughtless sister contented herself with laughing loudly, and contemptuously affecting to pity her 'primitive simplicity and ignorance.'
'It's a thousand pities, Lu, that your lot was not cast in the Arcadian ages. You are evidently formed by nature to sit on a green bank in shepherdess costume, twining flowers round your crook, and singing songs to your lambs. Excuse me, my dear, but positively that's all you are fit for. I wonder where I should be if I possessed your very, _very_ scrupulous conscience, and your infinitesimally nice notions of right and wrong? I daresay you'd be highly indignant--excessively shocked--if you knew the little _ruse_ I was forced to resort to in order to induce cross old Mrs Aylmer to take me to London with her last year. Don't look alarmed; I'm not going to tell you the whole story; only remember there _was_ a ruse.'
'Surely, Selina, you don't exult in it?' said Lucy, vexed at her sister's air of triumph.
'Wait a minute. See the consequences of my visit to London, which, had I been over-scrupulous, would never have taken place. Had I been _too_ particular, I should not have gone with Mrs Aylmer--should not have been introduced to her wealthy and fashionable friends--should not have met Mr Alfred Forde--_ergo_, should not have been engaged to be married to him, as I have at present the happiness of being.'
'My dear Selina,' said Lucy timidly, but affectionately, laying her hand upon her arm, and looking up into her face, 'are you sure that it is a happiness? Are you quite sure that you _love_ Mr Forde?'
Selina frowned--perhaps in order to hide the blush that she could not repress--and then peevishly shook off her sister's gentle touch.
'No lectures, if you please,' she said, turning away. 'Whatever my feelings may be with regard to my future husband, they concern no one but him and myself. Be assured I shall do my duty as a wife far better than half the silly girls who indulge in hourly rhapsodies about their love, devotion, and so forth.'