Age had not mattered;
Eileen's beauty had not mattered. Marian was good looking
herself.
She always had known that Eileen had imposed upon her and was
selfish with her, but Eileen's impositions were so skillfully
maneuvered, her selfishness was so adorably taken for granted
that Marian in retrospection felt that perhaps she was
responsible for at least a small part of it. She never had been
able to see the inner workings of Eileen's heart. She was not
capable of understanding that when John Gilman was poor and
struggling Eileen had ignored him. It had not occurred to Marian
that when the success for which he struggled began to come
generously, Eileen would begin to covet the man she had
previously disdained. She had always striven to find friends
among people of wealth and distinction. How was Marian to know
that when John began to achieve wealth and distinction, Eileen
would covet him also?
Marian could not know that Eileen had studied her harder than she
ever studied any book, that she had deliberately set herself to
make the most of every defect or idiosyncrasy in Marian, at the
same time offering herself as a charming substitute. Marian was
prepared to be the mental, the spiritual, and the physical mate
of a man.
Eileen was not prepared to be in truth and honor any of these.
She was prepared to make any emergency of life subservient to her
own selfish desires. She was prepared to use any man with whom
she came in contact for the furtherance of any whim that at the
hour possessed her.
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