never felt quite sure I had not been present. What most interested us
both was the extreme independence which the mother and daughter showed
beyond a certain point, and the daughter's great frankness in expressing
her difference of feeling. We had already had some hint of this, the
first day we met her, and we were not surprised at it now, my wife at
first hand, or I at second hand. Mrs. Bentley opened the way for her
daughter by saying that the worst of sickness was that it made one such
an affliction to others. She lived in an atmosphere of devotion, she
said, but her suffering left her so little of life that she could not
help clinging selfishly to everything that remained.

My wife perceived that this was meant for Miss Bentley, though it was
spoken to herself; and Miss Bentley seemed to take the same view of the
fact. She said: "We needn't use any circumlocution with Mrs. March,
mother. She knows just how the affair stands. You can say whatever you
wish, though I don't know why you should wish to say anything. You have
made your own terms with us, and we are keeping them to the letter. What
more can you ask? Do you want me to break with Mr. Glendenning? I will
do that too, if you ask it. You have got everything _but_ that, and you
can have that at any time. But Arthur and I are perfectly satisfied as
it is, and we can wait as long as you wish us to wait."

Her mother said: "I'm not allowed to forget that for a single hour," and
Miss Bentley said, "I never remind you of it unless you make me, mother.
You may be thinking of it all the time, but it isn't because of anything
I say."

"Or that you _do_?" asked Mrs. Bentley; and her daughter answered, "I
can't help existing, of course."