For some time now, by great wariness and circumspection she had
evaded it, and she had begun to entertain the trembling hope that she was
at last considered to have passed the age for such childish correction.
But her mother's outbreak of violence on the day of their departure had
been a painful disillusion, and she knew well what it would mean to
return home in disgrace with the de Vignes. Her cheeks burned and tingled
still with the shame of the discovery. She felt that another of the old
dreadful chastisements would overwhelm her utterly. And yet that she
would most certainly have to endure it if she were unruly now was
conviction that pressed like a cold weight upon her heart. Had not the
letter she had received from her mother only that morning contained a
stern injunction to her to behave herself, as though she had been a
naughty, wayward child?
"It would kill me!" she told herself passionately. "Oh, why, why, why
can't I grow up quick and marry? But I never shall grow up at home.
That's the horrible, horrible part of it. And I shall never have a chance
of marrying with mother looking on. I'm just a slave--a slave. Other
girls can have a good time, do as they like, flirt when they like. But
I--never--never!"
Her fit of rebellion lasted long. The emancipation from the home bondage
was beginning to work within her as the Colonel had predicted. Seen from
a distance, the old tyranny seemed outrageous and impossible, to go back
into it monstrous.
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