My quarrel was never really with her.

My quarrel was with the man who had made vows to me and then spent our family’s security courting her, and she was, in her way, just one more thing he had bought with money that was not entirely his to spend.

When she left him, weeks after the gala, I did not feel avenged.

I felt, if anything, a distant, tired recognition.

She had seen what he truly was a little later than I did.