But what a fright it had given her!  Her heart was quivering yet.  What unending vigilance it took to protect yourself from deep emotions.  When it wasn’t one, it was another, that sprang on you unawares.

Another one was there, ready to spring also, the suddenly conceived possibility, like an idea thrust into her mind from the outside, that there might be some active part she could play in what was going on in this house.  People did sometimes.  If some chance for this offered . . . you never could tell when . . . a word might be . . . perhaps something to turn Marise from Neale long enough to . . .

She cast this idea off with shame for its crudeness.  What vulgar raw things would come into your head when you let your mind roam idly . . . like cheap melodrama . . .

She would try the Vedanta deep-breathing exercises this time to quiet herself; and after them, breathing in and out through one nostril, and thinking of the Infinite, as the Yogi had told her.

She lay down flat on the bed for this, kicking off her quilted satin mules, and wriggling her toes loose in their lace-like silk stockings.  She would lie on her back, look up at the ceiling, and fix her mind on the movement up and down of her navel in breathing, as the Vedanta priest recommended to quiet the spirit.  Perhaps she could even say,

“Om . . . om . . . om . . .”

as they did.

* * * * *

No, no she couldn’t.  She still had vestiges of that stupid, gross Anglo-Saxon self-consciousness clinging to her.  But she would outgrow them, yet.

She lay there quiet and breathed slowly, her eyes fixed on the ceiling.  And into her mind there slowly slid a cypress-shaded walk with Rome far below on one side, and a sun-ripened, golden, old wall on the other.  She stood there with Marise, both so young, so young!  And down the path towards them came a tall figure, with a bold clear face, a tender full-lipped mouth, and eyes that both smiled and were steady.

Helplessly she watched him come, groaning in spirit at what she knew would happen; but she could not escape till the ache in her throat swelled and broke, as she saw that his eyes were for Marise and his words, and all of his very self for which she . . .

So many years . . . so many years . . . with so much else in the world . . . not to have been able to cure that one ache . . . and she did not want to suffer . . . she wanted to be at rest, and have what she needed.  The tears rose brimming to her eyes, and ran down on each side of her face to the pillow.  Poor Eugenia!  Poor Eugenia!

* * * * *

She was almost broken this time, but not entirely.  There was some fight left in her.  She got up from the bed, clenched her hands tightly, and stood in the middle of the floor, gathering herself together.

Down with it!  Down!  Down!  Just now, at this time, when such an utterly unexpected dawn of a possible escape . . . to give way again.