that which they presented to the world at large. Anne Majendie, who had
come so near to Edith, had always put a certain distance between herself
and her other friends. While they were chiefly impressed with her superb
superiority, and saw her forever standing on a pedestal, Edith declared
that she knew nothing of Anne's austere and impressive attributes. She
protested against anything so dreary as the other people's view of her.
They and their absurd pedestals! She refused to regard her sister-in-law
as an established solemnity, eminent and lonely in the scene. Pedestals
were all very well at a proper distance, but at a close view they were
foreshortening to the human figure. Other people might like to see more
pedestal than Anne; she preferred to see more Anne than pedestal. If they
didn't know that Anne was dear and sweet, she did. So did Walter.

If they wanted proof of it, why, would any other woman have put up with
her and her wretched spine? Weren't they all, Anne's friends, sorry for
Anne just because of it, of her? If you came to think of it, if you
traced everything back to the beginning, her spine had been the cause
of all Anne's troubles.

That was how she had always reasoned it out. No suffering had ever
obscured the lucidity of Edith's mind. She knew that it was her spine
that had kept her brother from marrying all those years. He couldn't
leave her alone with it, neither could he ask any woman to share the
house inhabited, pervaded, dominated by it. Unsafeguarded by marriage, he
had fallen into evil hands. To Edith, who had plenty of leisure for
reflection, all this had become terribly clear.

Then Anne had come, the strong woman who could bear Walter's burden for
him. She had been jealous of Anne at first, for five minutes. Then she
had blessed her.