‘No, he is not Anne’s kind,’ said the mother.
Anne did not say anything. She agreed in their verdict; evidently Heathcote was one of those disappointments of which before she met Cosmo the world had been full. Many people had excited generally her curiosity, if not in the same yet in a similar way, and these had disappointed her altogether. She did not blame Heathcote. If he was unable to perceive his own position in the world, and the attitude that was befitting to him, possibly it was not his fault. Very likely it was not his fault; most probably he did not know any better. You cannot expect a man to act contrary to his nature, Anne said to herself; and she gave up Heathcote with a little gentle disdain. This disdain is the very soul of toleration. It is so much more easy to put up with the differences, the discrepancies, of other people’s belief or practice, when you find them inferior, not to be judged by your standards. This was what Anne did. She was not angry with him for not being the Heathcote she had looked for. She was tolerant: he knew no better; if you look for gold in a pebble, it is not the pebble’s fault if you do not find it. This was the mistake she had made. She went to the other end of the room where candles were burning on a table and chairs set out around. It was out of reach of all the chatter about Heathcote in which she did not agree. She took a book, and set it up before her to make a screen before her gaze, and, thus defended, went off at once into her private sanctuary and thought of Cosmo. Never was there a transformation scene more easily managed. The walls of the Mount drawing-room divided, they gave place to a group of the beeches, with two figures seated underneath, or to a bit of the commonplace road, but no longer commonplace--a road that led to the Manor. What right had a girl to grumble at her companions, or any of their ways, when she could escape in the twinkling of an eye into some such beautiful place, into some such heavenly company, which was all her own? But yet there would come back occasionally, as through a glass, an image of the Italian lady upon whom she had been so hard a little while before. Poor Italian lady! evidently, after all, Heathcote’s life had not been blighted. Had she, perhaps, instead of injuring him only blighted her own?