, auspicious or
luminous or flattering, since the hour of her first meeting this man, rather
than the grey light he cast on her, promising helpfulness, and inspiring a
belief in her capacity to help. Not the Salvatore high raptures nor the nights
of social applause could appear preferable: she strained her shattered wits to
try them. As for her superlunary sphere, it was in fragments; and she mused on
the singularity, considering that she was not deeply enamoured. Was she so at
all? The question drove her to embrace the dignity of being reasonable - under
Emma's guidance. For she did not stand firmly alone; her story confessed it.
Marriage might be the archway to the road of good service, even as our passage
through the flesh may lead to the better state. She had thoughts of the kind,
and had them while encouraging herself to deplore the adieu to her little
musk-scented sitting-room, where a modest freedom breathed, and her
individuality had seemed pointing to a straighter growth.
    She nodded subsequently to the truth of her happy Emma's remark: »You were
created for the world, Tony.« A woman of blood and imagination in the warring
world, without a mate whom she can revere, subscribes to a likeness with those
independent minor realms between greedy mighty neighbours, which conspire and
undermine when they do not openly threaten to devour. So, then, this union, the
return to the wedding yoke, received sanction of grey-toned reason. She was not
enamoured: she could say it to herself. She had, however, been surprised, both
by the man and her unprotesting submission; surprised and warmed, unaccountably
warmed. Clearness of mind in the woman chaste by nature, however little ignorant
it allowed her to be in the general review of herself, could not compass the
immediately personal, with its acknowledgement of her subserviency to touch and
pressure - and more, stranger, her readiness to kindle. She left it unexplained.
Unconsciously the image of Dacier was effaced. Looking backward, her heart was
moved to her long-constant lover with most pitying tender wonderment - stormy
man, as her threatened senses told her that he was. Looking at him, she had to
mask her being abashed and mastered. And looking forward, her soul fell in
prayer for this true man's never repenting of his choice. Sure of her now, Mr.
Thomas Redworth had returned to the station of the courtier, and her feminine
sovereignty was not ruffled to make her feel too feminine. Another revelation
was his playful talk when they were