Moya did not move an inch towards the opened door. Her tears were dry; fires leapt in their stead.
"With all your wits you don't know the first thing about women!"
"You mean that you require driving like Paddy's pig? Oh, no, you don't, Moya; go and sleep upon it."
It was one burst of all she felt, but only one.
"I'm afraid you won't," said Theodore, with more humanity. "Still it's better to lose a night thinking things over, calmly and surely, as you're very capable of doing, than to go another day with that ring upon your finger."
Moya stared at him with eyes in which the fires were quenched, but not by tears. She looked dazed.
"Do put your mind to it--your own sane mind!" her brother pleaded, with more of wisdom than he had shown with her yet. "And--I don't want to be hard--I never meant to be hard about this again--but God help you now to the only proper and sensible decision!"
So was he beginning to send his juries about their vital business; and, after all, Moya went to hers with as much docility as the twelve good men and true.
Theodore was right about one thing. She must put her mind to it once and for ever.
She put her mind to it with characteristic thoroughness and honesty. Let there be no mistake about Moya Bethune. She had faults of temper, and faults of temperament, and as many miscellaneous faults as she was quick to find in others; but this did not retard her from seeing them in herself. She was a little spoilt; it is the almost inevitable defect of the popular qualities. She had a good conceit of herself, and a naughty tongue; she could not have belonged to that branch of the Bethunes and quite escaped either. On the other hand, she was not without their cardinal merits. There was, indeed, a brutal honesty in the breed; in Moya it became a singular sincerity, not always pleasing to her friends, but counterbalanced by the brightness and charm of her personality. She was incapable of deceiving another; infinitely rarer, she was equally incapable of deceiving herself; and could consider most things from more standpoints than are accessible to most women, always provided that she kept that cornerstone of all sane judgment, her temper. She had lost it with Rigden and lost it with Theodore, and was in a pretty bad temper with herself to boot; but that is a minor matter; it does not drive the blood to the brain; it need not obscure every point of view but one. And there were but two worthy of Moya's consideration.