Even then you'd be sorry.

You know what your future may be; you know what you are fitted for.

What can you do without Howard?
In this town your role would be a very minor one without Howard's money, and you know it." "Yes, I know it." "And your sacrifice could not help that doomed boy." Sylvia nodded assent.
"Then, is there any choice?
Is there any question of what to do ?" Sylvia looked out into the winter sky, through the tops of snowy trees; everywhere the stark, deathly rigidity of winter.

Under it, frozen, lay the rain that had scented the air.

Under her ambition lay the ghosts of yesterday.
"No," she said, "there is no question of choice.