"Ideala is a much cleverer woman than I am. She would make me laugh at
my own advice in five minutes. And, besides, if she be infatuated, as
you say she is, she will be only too glad to be allowed to talk about
him, and that will strengthen her feeling for him. No. She has chosen
you for her confidant, and you had better talk to her yourself--and may
you succeed!" she added, laying her head on the table beside which she
was sitting, and giving way to a burst of grief.
I tried to comfort her, but I had little hope myself, and I could not
speak at all confidently.
"I believe," Claudia said, before we parted, "that there is nothing for
her now but a choice of two evils. If she gives him up she will never
care for anything again, and if she does not, she will have done an
unjustifiable thing; and life after that for such a woman as Ideala
would be like one of those fairy gifts which were bestowed subject to
some burdensome condition that made the good of them null and void."
I did not meet Ideala again until the evening, and then I was not sorry
to see that her manner was less serene.
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