THE STEADFAST HEART
this she differed from Rainbow…. Had anyone hinted to her of a possible marriage between herself and Angus Burke, such a one would have forfeited her friendship forever, and in the process would have heard words and phrases calculated to put him in his place forever…. In the light of reason such a dénouement seemed monstrous, impossible.
Now, as if a cold hand had been placed upon her back, she came face to face with a fact and could not evade it. The sensation she had just experienced, when Mrs. Bowen had planned a romance between Angus and Myrtle Cuyler, had been jealousy! She knew in this appalling moment that she had been jealous last night when her guest had admired Angus so heartily and praised him so generously…. It shocked her, terrified her. It was a thing she could not reason with in that crowded place; a thing requiring seclusion, a thing requiring clear thinking and resolution…. And, as these matters came to vex her, she had a vision of Angus himself. He came to overshadow all other reflections as she saw him as he had stood before her the night before, tall, dignified, seemly, in appearance more as a gentleman should be than any of her accepted friends. She saw him rising to emergencies, more than one of them, as a gentleman should rise to an emergency…. Because the
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