But out of wilful
idleness, the mere flattery of the senses, a vampire feeding upon the
spirits and souls of others, for nothing save emotion for emotion's sake
--that was shameless, it was the last humiliation of a woman. As it
were, to lose joy, and glow, and fervour of young, sincere and healthy
life, to whip up the dying vitality and morbid brain of a consumptive!
All in a flash he saw it, realised it, and hated himself for it. He knew
that as long as he lived, an hour or ten years, he never could redeem
himself; never could forgive himself, and never buy back the life that he
had injured. Many a time in his life he had kissed and ridden away, and
had been unannoyed by conscience. But in proportion as conscience had
neglected him before, it ground him now between the stones, and he saw
himself as he was. Come of a gentleman's family, he knew he was no
gentleman. Having learned the forms and courtesies of life, having
infused his whole career with a spirit of gay bonhomie, he knew that in
truth he was a swaggerer; that bad taste, infamous bad taste, had marked
almost everything that he had done in his life. He had passed as one of
the nobility, but he knew that all true men, all he had ever met, must
have read him through and through.
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