It went on like this for several minutes. The bell rang for the third act. People moved back toward their boxes. Charity said one final thing and Harper responded and the conversation concluded in the way conversations concluded with Harper, which was with everything having been said and nothing having moved.
Charity appeared at Temperance’s elbow. “He is very stubborn,” she said.
“I know,” Temperance said.
“He said his intentions are entirely in your best interests,” Charity said. “In those exact words.”
“He always says that,” Temperance said.
“He believes it,” Alethea said, from her other side. “That is rather the problem. It is very difficult to argue with a man who is genuinely convinced he is right.”
“What did you say?” Temperance asked.
“I said that you were perfectly capable of managing your own affairs and that the season was nearly over and that you had done perfectly well for twenty-five years without his intervention,” Charity said. “Alethea said that you were one of the most capable women she had ever known.”
“And he said?” Temperance asked.
“He said he did not think you were incapable,” Alethea said. “He said he thought you deserved better options than the ones available to you and that he felt responsible for improving those options.”
“That is very well put,” Temperance said.
“That is what I told him,” Charity said. “I also told him that well put and correct were not always the same thing.”
“Did that help?”
Charity looked at her with the expression of a woman who had tried her best and was being honest about the results. “Not especially,” she said.
The third act was considerably better than the first two, which Temperance attributed partly to the tenor having found his footing and partly to the fact that she had stopped trying not to look at the other box and had simply decided to watch the opera, which was after all what she had come to do.
It ended well, and the applause was genuine and enthusiastic.
In the corridor afterward, the party assembled itself with the usual slightly chaotic efficiency of a group of people trying to organize themselves after an event. It was only until they were alone together in the carriage did they get a chance to speak to one another. Harper said nothing for the first few minutes.
“You spoke to Charity,” she said, when the silence had gone on long enough.
“She came to me, yes.”
“She told me what she said.”
“Then you know what was discussed,” he said. “So why ask me?”
“I would like to know what you said.”
He turned from the window.
“I said that my intentions were entirely in your best interests,” he said, “which is true, and which I do not intend to apologize for.”
“Have you considered that being in my best interests and being what I want are not always the same thing?”
“You are frustrated,” he said.
“I have been frustrated for some time,” she said. “It is not a new development.”
“What would you have me do differently?” he said. “Tell me specifically. I would like to know.”
She looked at him for a moment. The carriage moved through the streets and the city noise moved with it, and she thought about the question and what the honest answer to it was.
“Ask me,” she said. “Before you arrange anything. Before you find Lord Pemberton or anyone like him. Ask me what I think and actually listen to the answer, and if I say I am not interested then trust that I have a reason and do not require further management.”
