"Indeed:" cried Lucy, divided between sincerity and kindness: "if it was ever so for a moment, it was only because I did not understand."
"My sweetest child! this I tell you is one of the curses of poverty. I knew it was disagreeable to you; but because of the great advantage of being in your house, not only for me, but for Bice, for whom I have sworn to do my best--Lucy, pardon me--I could not make up my mind to go away. Listen! I said to myself, I am poor, I cannot give her all the advantages; and they are rich; it is nothing to them--I will stay, I will continue, though they do not want me, not for my sake, for the sake of Bice. They will not be sorry afterwards to have made the fortune of Bice. Listen, dear one; hear me out. I had the intention of forcing myself upon you--oh no! the words are not too strong--in London, always for Bice's sake, for she has no one but me; and if her career is stopped---- I am not a woman," said the Contessa, with dignity, "who am used to find myself _de trop_. I have been in my life courted, I may say it, rather than disagreeable; yet this I was willing to bear--and impose myself upon you for Bice's sake----"
Lucy listened to this moving address with many differing emotions. It gave her a pang to think that her hopes of having her house to herself were thus permanently threatened. But at the same time her heart swelled, and all her generous feelings were stirred. Was she indeed so poor a creature as to grudge to two lonely women the shelter and advantage of her wealth and position? If she did this, what did it matter if she gave money away? This would indeed be keeping to the letter of her father's will, and abjuring its meaning. She could not resist the pathos, the dignity, the sweetness of the Contessa's appeal, which was not for herself but for Bice, for the girl who was so good to baby, and whom that little oracle had bound her to with links of gratitude and tenderness. "Oh," Lucy said to herself, "if I should ever have to appeal to any one for kindness to him!" And Bice was the Contessa's child--the child of her heart, at least--the voluntary charge which she had taken upon her, and to which she was devoting herself. Was it possible that only because she wanted to have her husband to herself in the evenings, and objected to any interruption of their privacy, a woman should be made to suffer who was a good woman, and to whom Lucy could be of use? No, no, she cried within herself, the tears coming to her eyes; and yet there was a very real pang behind.