The Man in Possession — page 166: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

& THE MAN IN POSSESSION. 161 Jocelyn’s voice, interrupting that somewhat dreary contemplation of her sex and its hypocrisies in which Kate was indulging. The girl started, and flushed a little. ‘‘Was I looking grave? I was only thinking.” ‘‘T suppose of the happiness in store for you ?” said Lady Westmoreland, whose two plain and _ por- tionless daughters had been brought to Croft for the very end which Kate had gained so easily. ‘‘T do not believe in happiness,” said the girl gravely, looking at the portly dowager with that calm searching gaze which the women so much disliked. ‘“T was only thinking what life would be like if we were all perfectly honest, and perfectly frank with one another. It seems so odd, sometimes, to think how we Spend our lives in pretending to be what we are not, to like what we hate, to do what we are not doing, and to cover up a tissue of mistakes by an elaborate fiction of ‘ Whatever is, is right.’ ”’ | ‘‘Dear me,” said Lady Westmoreland, ‘‘that is just the way this new school is beginning to talk. I hope, Miss O’Brien, you are not going over to those dreadful women who call themselves ‘ emancipated.’” ‘‘If admiring truth and candour in others and desiring to see it universal means being ‘ emanci- pated,’ then I must plead guilty,” said the girl, smil- ing. ‘‘Surely, Lady Westmoreland, there are times in society lives, in your own life even, when you feel it would be much nicer to be frankly and honestly miserable instead of ‘pretending’ to be happy—when you know your sentiments and opinions are not the - outcome of any genuine feeling, but rather the parrot- © COMicloe (Sri C(O)