Though Constance was too ill to know how ill she was, though she had no conception of the domestic confusion caused by her illness, her brain was often remarkably clear, and she could reflect in long, sane meditations above the uneasy sea of her pain.
In the earlier hours of the night, after the nurses had been changed, and Mary had gone to bed exhausted with stair-climbing, and Lily Holl was recounting the day to Dick up at the grocer's, and the day-nurse was already asleep, and the night-nurse had arranged the night, then, in the faintly-lit silence of the chamber, Constance would argue with herself for an hour at a time.
She frequently thought of Sophia.
In spite of the fact that Sophia was dead she still pitied Sophia as a woman whose life had been wasted.
This idea of Sophia's wasted and sterile life, and of the far-reaching importance of adhering to principles, recurred to her again and again.
"Why did she run away with him?
If only she had not run away!" she would repeat.
And yet there had been something so fine about Sophia!
Which made Sophia's case all the more pitiable!
Constance never pitied herself.
She did not consider that Fate had treated her very badly.
She was not very discontented with herself.
The invincible commonsense of a sound nature prevented her, in her best moments, from feebly dissolving in self-pity.
She had lived in honesty and kindliness for a fair number of years, and she had tasted triumphant hours.
She was justly respected, she had a position, she had dignity, she was well-off.
She possessed, after all, a certain amount of quiet self-conceit.
There existed nobody to whom she would 'knuckle down,' or could be asked to 'knuckle down.'
True, she was old!
So were thousands of other people in Bursley.
She was in pain.
So there were thousands of other people.
With whom would she be willing to exchange lots?
She had many dissatisfactions.
But she rose superior to them.
When she surveyed her life, and life in general, she would think, with a sort of tart but not sour cheerfulness:
"Well, that is what life is!"
Despite her habit of complaining about domestic trifles, she was, in the essence of her character, 'a great body for making the best of things.'
Thus she did not unduly bewail her excursion to the Town Hall to vote, which the sequel had proved to be ludicrously supererogatory.
"How was I to know?" she said.
The one matter in which she had gravely to reproach herself was her indulgent spoiling of Cyril after the death of Samuel Povey.
But the end of her reproaches always was:
"I expect I should do the same again!
And probably it wouldn't have made any difference if I hadn't spoiled him!"
And she had paid tenfold for the weakness.
She loved Cyril, but she had no illusions about him; she saw both sides of him.
She remembered all the sadness and all the humiliations which he had caused her.
Still, her affection was unimpaired.
A son might be worse than Cyril was; he had admirable qualities.
She did not resent his being away from England while she lay ill.
"If it was serious," she said, "he would not lose a moment."
And Lily and Dick were a treasure to her.
In those two she really had been lucky.
She took great pleasure in contemplating the splendour of the gift with which she would mark her appreciation of them at their approaching wedding.
The secret attitude of both of them towards her was one of good-natured condescension, expressed in the tone in which they would say to each other, 'the old lady.'
Perhaps they would have been startled to know that Constance lovingly looked down on both of them.
She had unbounded admiration for their hearts; but she thought that Dick was a little too brusque, a little too clownish, to be quite a gentleman.
And though Lily was perfectly ladylike, in Constance's opinion she lacked backbone, or grit, or independence of spirit.
Further, Constance considered that the disparity of age between them was excessive.
It is to be doubted whether, when all was said, Constance had such a very great deal to learn from the self-confident wisdom of these young things.
After a period of self-communion, she would sometimes fall into a shallow delirium.