ome old house
that you have long left. She was so--so submissive. Why, even to me she
had the air of being submissive--to me that not the youngest child will
ever pay heed to. Yes, this is the saddest story...

No, I cannot help wishing that Florence had left her alone--with her
playing with adultery. I suppose it was; though she was such a child
that one has the impression that she would hardly have known how to
spell such a word. No, it was just submissiveness--to the importunities,
to the tempestuous forces that pushed that miserable fellow on to ruin.
And I do not suppose that Florence really made much difference. If it
had not been for her that Ashburnham left his allegiance for Mrs Maidan,
then it would have been some other woman. But still, I do not know.
Perhaps the poor young thing would have died--she was bound to die,
anyhow, quite soon--but she would have died without having to soak her
noonday pillow with tears whilst Florence, below the window, talked to
Captain Ashburnham about the Constitution of the United States.... Yes,
it would have left a better taste in the mouth if Florence had let her
die in peace....

Leonora behaved better in a sense. She just boxed Mrs Maidan's
ears--yes, she hit her, in an uncontrollable access of rage, a hard blow
on the side of the cheek, in the corridor of the hotel, outside Edward's
rooms. It was that, you know, that accounted for the sudden, odd
intimacy that sprang up between Florence and Mrs Ashburnham. Because
it was, of course, an odd intimacy. If you look at it from the outside
nothing could have been more unlikely than that Leonora, who is
the proudest creature on God's earth, would have struck up an
acquaintanceship with two casual Yankees whom she could not really have
regarded as being much more than a carpet beneath her feet. You may
ask what she had to be proud of. Well, she was a Powys married to
an Ashburnham--I suppose that gave her the right to despise casual
Americans as long as she did it unostentatiously. I don't know what
anyone has to be proud of. She might have taken pride in her patience,
in her keeping her husband out of the bankruptcy court. Perhaps she did.

At any rate that was how Florence got to know her. She came round a
screen at the corner of the hotel corridor and found Leonora with the
gold key that hung from her wrist caught in Mrs Maidan's hair just
before dinner. There was not a single word spoken. Little Mrs Maidan was
very pale, w