CHAPTER XLVI
THE MUSIC MUTE
When Cerise found herself alone, she naturally read her
mother's letter once again, and made a variety of resolutions
for her future conduct which she could not but
acknowledge were derogatory to her own dignity the while.
It was her duty, she told herself, to yield to her husband's
prejudices, however unreasonable; to give way to him in
this, as in every other difference of married life—for she
felt it was a difference, though expressed only by a turn of
his eyebrow, a contraction of his lip—and to trample her
own pride under foot when he required it, however humiliating
and disagreeable it might be to herself. If George
was so absurd as to think she showed an over-anxiety for
the safety of their guest, why, she must bear with his folly
because he was her husband, and school her manner to
please him, as she schooled her thoughts. After all, was
she not interested in Florian only as his friend? What
was it, what could it be to her, if the priest were carried off
to York gaol, or the Tower of London, to-morrow? Lady
Hamilton passed very rapidly over this extreme speculation,
and perhaps she was right; though it is easy to convince
yourself by argument that you are uninterested in any one,
the actual process of your thoughts is apt to create something
very like a special interest which increases in proportion
to the multitude of reasons adduced against its
possibility, and that which was but a phantom when you sat
down to consider it has grown into a solid and tangible
substance when you get up. Lady Hamilton, therefore,
was discreet in reverting chiefly to what her husband
