The banquet and inauguration went off fairly well. There was
nothing in it worth recording, except that Rosamond pronounced that
Raymond only wanted a particle of Irish fluency to be a perfect
speaker; but every one was observing how ill and depressed he
looked. Even Cecil began to see it herself, and to ask Lady Tyrrell
with some anxiety whether she thought him altered.
"Men always look worn after a Session," said Lady Tyrrell.
"If this really makes him unhappy!"
"My dear Cecil, that's the very proof of the necessity. If it makes
him unhappy to go five miles away with his wife, it ought not. You
should wean him from such dependence."
Cecil had tears in her eyes as she said, "I don't know! When I hear
him sighing in his sleep, I long to give it up and tell him I will
try to be happy here."
"My dear child, don't be weak. If you give way now, you will rue it
all your life."
"If I could have taken to his mother, I think he would have cared
more for me."
"No. The moment her jealousy was excited she would have resumed
him, and you would have been the more shut out in the cold.
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