She had told Lyndon Hobart of her engagement because it was the
honest thing to do; because she supposed she ought to discourage any hopes
he might be entertaining. But it did not follow that he need have let these
hopes be extinguished so summarily. She could have wished his scrupulous
regard for the proper thing had not had the effect of taking him so
completely out of her external life, while leaving him more insistently
than ever the subject of her inner contemplation.
Virginia's conscience was of the twentieth century and American, though she
was a good deal more honest with herself than most of her sex in the same
social circle. Also she was straightforward with her neighbors so far as
she could reasonably be. But she was not a Puritan in the least, though she
held herself to a more rigid account than she did her friends. She judged
her betrothed as little as she could, but this was not to be entirely
avoided, since she expected her life to become merged so largely in his.
There were hours when she felt she must escape the blighting influence of
his lawlessness.
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