And yet it is rather hard, when one's still reasonably young, with almost everything before one--to be a marked woman all one's time!" Up to her last words, despite an inviting pause after almost every sentence, I had succeeded in holding my tongue; though she was looking wistfully now at the distant snow-peaks and obviously bestowing upon herself the sympathy she did not want from me (as I had been told in so many words, if not more plainly in the accompanying brief encounter between our eyes), yet had I resisted every temptation to put in my word, until these last two or three from Mrs.Lascelles.They, however, demanded a denial, and I told her it was absurd to describe herself in such terms.
"I am marked," she persisted, "wherever I go I may be known, as you knew me here.

If it hadn't been you it would have been somebody else, and I should have known of it indirectly instead of directly; but even supposing I had escaped altogether at this hotel, the next one would probably have made up for it." "Do you stay much in hotels ?" There had been something in the mellow voice which made such a question only natural, yet it was scarcely asked before I would have given a good deal to recall it.
"There is nowhere else to stay," said Mrs.Lascelles, "unless one sets up house alone, which is costlier and far less comfortable.

You see, one does make a friend or two sometimes--before one is found out." "But surely your people--" This time I did check myself.
"My people," said Mrs.Lascelles, "have washed their hands of me." "But Major Lascelles--surely _his_ people--" "They washed their hands of him! You see, they would be the first to tell you, he had always been rather wild; but his crowning act of madness in their eyes was his marriage.

It was worse than the worst thing he had ever done before.

Still, it is not for me to say anything, or feel anything, against his family...." And then I knew that they were making her an allowance; it was more than I wanted to know; the ground was too delicate, and led nowhere in particular.