But
her trouble about her uncle was fed from day to day by what her aunt
could not or would not see, and it was a nearer calamity and more and
more distressing. Then she sat thinking what was John like now. She saw
the slight figure, so young and still so thoughtful, as she had smiled in
her larger experience of men when they had sat and played years ago with
violets on the hillside of West Point. No, she was unprepared to commit
herself for life, for would he too be of the same mind? For a moment she
stood still indecisive, then she tore up her too tender letter and wrote
the brief note which so troubled him. She sent it and then was sorry she
had not obeyed the impulse of the kindlier hour.
The nobler woman instinct is apt to be armed by nature for defensive
warfare. If she has imagination, she has in hours of doubt some sense of
humiliation in the vast surrender of marriage. This accounts for certain
of the cases of celibate women, who miss the complete life and have no
ready traitor within the guarded fortress to open the way to love. Some
such instinctive limitations beset Leila Grey. The sorrow of a great, a
nearer and constant affection came to her aid. To think of anything like
love, even if again it questioned her, was out of the question while
before her eyes James Penhallow was fading in mind.
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