During the three years he had been away the feeling had calmed down, but
the ideal was still there, and the memory. Whenever Bruce was
maddening--which was fairly often--when she heard music, when she saw
beautiful scenery, when she was reading a romantic book, when any other
man admired her, Aylmer was always in her thoughts.
When Edith saw him again she was not sure that she had not worn out her
passion by dwelling on it. But that might easily be caused by the mere
_gene_ of the first two or three meetings. There is a shyness, a sort of
coldness, in meeting again a person one has passionately loved. To see
the dream in flesh and blood, the thought made concrete, once more
brings poetry down to prose. Then the terms they met on now were
changed. He was playing such a different part. Instead of the strong,
determined man who had voluntarily left her, refusing to know her as a
friend, and reproaching her bitterly for playing with him, as he called
it, here was a broken invalid, a pathetic figure who appealed to
entirely different sentiments. There is naturally something maternal in
a woman's feeling to a sick man. There was also the halo that surrounds
the wounded hero.
Pages:
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135