Even when she saw Agatha Triscoe enter the park gate on Rutherford Place, she saved herself from disappointment by declaring that she was not coming across to their house.  As the girl persisted in coming and coming, and at last came so near that she caught sight of Mrs. March at the window and nodded, the mother turned ungratefully upon her daughter, and drove her away to her own room, so that no society detail should hinder the divine chance.  She went to the door herself when Agatha rang, and then she was going to open the way into the parlor where March was still closeted with Burnamy, and pretend that she had not known they were there.  But a soberer second thought than this prevailed, and she told the girl who it was that was within and explained the accident of his presence.  “I think,” she said nobly, “that you ought to have the chance of going away if you don’t wish to meet him.”

The girl, with that heroic precipitation which Mrs. March had noted in her from the first with regard to what she wanted to do, when Burnamy was in question, answered, “But I do wish to meet him, Mrs. March.”

While they stood looking at each other, March came out to ask his wife if she would see Burnamy, and she permitted herself so much stratagem as to substitute Agatha, after catching her husband aside and subduing his proposed greeting of the girl to a hasty handshake.

Half an hour later she thought it time to join the young people, urged largely by the frantic interest of her daughter.  But she returned from the half-open door without entering.  “I couldn’t bring myself to break in on the poor things.  They are standing at the window together looking over at St. George’s.”

Bella silently clasped her hands.  March gave cynical laugh, and said, “Well we are in for it, my dear.”  Then he added, “I hope they’ll take us with them on their Silver Wedding Journey.”

PG EDITOR’S BOOKMARKS: 

    Declare that they had nothing to declare
    Despair which any perfection inspires
    Disingenuous, hypocritical passion of love
    Fundamentally incapable of taking anything seriously
    Held aloof in a sarcastic calm
    Illusions:  no marriage can be perfect without them
    Married life:  we expect too much of each other
    Not do to be perfectly frank with one’s own country
    Offence which any difference of taste was apt to give him
    Passionate desire for excess in a bad thing
    Puddles of the paths were drying up with the haste
    Race seemed so often without philosophy
    Self-sacrifice which could be had, as it were, at a bargain
    She always came to his defence when he accused himself

PG EDITORS BOOKMARKS FOR THE COMPLETE TRILOGY: