"Hyacinth, Hyacinth, why will you persist in being miserable when you have
so little cause for sadness?"
"Have I not cause? Am I not growing old, and robbed of the only friend who
brought gaiety into my life; who understood my thoughts and valued me? A
traitor, I know--like the rest of them. They are all traitors. But he would
have been true had I been kinder, and trusted him."
"Hyacinth, you are mad! Would you have had him more your friend? He was
too near as it was. Every thought you gave him was an offence against your
husband. Would you have sunk as low as those shameless women the King
admires?"
"Sunk--low? Why, those women are on a pinnacle of
fame--courted--flattered--poetised--painted. They will be famous for
centuries after you and I are forgotten. There is no such thing as shame
nowadays, except that it is shameful to have done nothing to be ashamed of.
I have wasted my life, Angela. There was not a woman at the Louvre who had
my complexion, nor one who could walk a coranto with more grace. Yet I have
consented to be a nobody at two Courts. And now I am growing old, and my
poor painted face shocks me when I chance on my reflection by daylight; and
there is nothing left for me--nothing.
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