The whole fabric of circumstance was between
them, to realize and to explore; later surveys, as we
know, had not reduced it. They gave it great credit as
a barrier; I suppose because it kept them out of each
other's arms. It had done that.
It was Advena, I fear, who insisted most that they should
continue upon terms of happy debt to one another, the
balance always changing, the account never closed and
rendered. She no doubt felt that she might impose the
terms; she had unconsciously the sense of greater sacrifice,
and knew that she had been mistress of the situation long
before he was aware of it. He agreed with joy and with
misgiving; he saw with enthusiasm her high conception of
their alliance, but sometimes wondered, poor fellow,
whether he was right in letting it cover him. He came to
the house as he had done before, as often as he could,
and reproached himself that he could not, after all, come
very often.
That they should discuss their relation as candidly as
they sustained it was perhaps a little peculiar to them,
so I have laid stress on it; but it was not by any means
their sole preoccupation. They talked like tried friends
of their every-day affairs. Indeed, after the trouble
and intoxication of their great understanding had spent
itself, it was the small practical interests of life that
seemed to hold them most.
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