 speech was not frequent upon her lips when she talked with
Cecily. In spite of the girl's nature, there had never existed between them
warmer relations than those of fondness and interest on one side, and gentleness
with respect on the other. Cecily was well aware of this something lacking in
their common life; she had wished, not seldom these last two years, to supply
the want, but found herself unable, and grew conscious that her aunt gave all it
was in her power to bestow. For this very reason, she found it impossible to
utter herself in the present juncture as she could have done to a mother - as
she could have done to Miriam; impossible, likewise, to insist on her heart's
urgent desire, though she knew not how she should forbear it. To refuse
compliance would have been something more than failure in dutifulness; she would
have felt it as harshness, and perhaps injustice, to one with whom she
involuntarily stood on terms of ceremony.
    »May I write a reply to this letter?« she asked, after a silence.
    »I had rather you allowed me to speak for you to Mr. Elgar. To write and to
see him are the same thing. Surely you can forget yourself for a moment, and
regard this from my point of view.«
    »I don't know how far you may be led by your sense of responsibility.
Remember that you have insisted to me on your prejudice against Mr. Elgar.«
    »Vainly enough,« returned the other, with a smile. »If you prefer it, I will
myself write a line to be given to Mr. Elgar when he calls. Of course, you shall
see what I write.«
    Cecily turned away, and stood in struggle with herself. She had not foreseen
a conflict of this kind. Surprise, and probably vexation, she was prepared for;
irony, argument, she was quite ready to face; but it had not entered her mind
that Mrs. Lessingham would invoke authority to oppose her. Such a step was alien
to all the habits of their intercourse, to the spirit of her education. She had
deemed herself a woman, and free; what else could result from Mrs. Lessingham's
method of training and developing her? This disillusion gave a shock to her
self-respect; she suffered from a sense of shame; with difficulty she subdued
resentment and impulses yet more rebellious. It was ignoble to debate in this
way concerning that of which she could not yet speak formally with her own mind;
to contend
