comfort her. You cannot, you see, have acted as nurse to a person
for twelve years without wishing to go on nursing them, even
though you hate them with the hatred of the adder, and even in the
palm of God. But, in the nights, with that vision of judgement
before me, I know that I hold myself back. For I hate Florence. I
hate Florence with such a hatred that I would not spare her an
eternity of loneliness. She need not have done what she did. She
was an American, a New Englander. She had not the hot passions
of these Europeans. She cut out that poor imbecile of an
Edward--and I pray God that he is really at peace, clasped close in
the arms of that poor, poor girl! And, no doubt, Maisie Maidan
will find her young husband again, and Leonora will burn, clear
and serene, a northern light and one of the archangels of God. And
me. . . . Well, perhaps, they will find me an elevator to run. . . .
But Florence. . . .

She should not have done it. She should not have done it. It was
playing it too low down. She cut out poor dear Edward from sheer
vanity; she meddled between him and Leonora from a sheer,
imbecile spirit of district visiting. Do you understand that, whilst
she was Edward's mistress, she was perpetually trying to reunite
him to his wife? She would gabble on to Leonora about
forgiveness--treating the subject from the bright, American point
of view. And Leonora would treat her like the whore she was.
Once she said to Florence in the early morning:

"You come to me straight out of his bed to tell me that that is my
proper place. I know it, thank you."

But even that could not stop Florence. She went on saying that it