Statira showed herself so glad to see him that he could not do less
than seem to share her joy in their making-up, as she called it,
though he insisted that there had been no quarrel between them; and
now there began for him a strange double life, the fact of which
each reader must reject or accept according to the witness of his
own knowledge.
He renewed as far as he could the old warmth of his feeling for
Statira, and in his compunction experienced a tenderness for her
that he had not known before, the strange tenderness that some
spirits feel for those they injure. He went oftener than ever to see
her, he was very good to her, and cheered her with his interest in
all her little interests; he petted her and comforted her; but he
escaped from her as soon as he could, and when he shut her door
behind him he shut her within it. He made haste to forget her, and
to lose himself in thoughts that were never wholly absent even in
her presence. Sometimes he went directly from her to Jessie, whose
innocent Bohemianism kept later hours, and who was always glad to
see him whenever he came. She welcomed him with talk that they
thought related wholly to the books they had been reading, and to
the things of deep psychological import which they suggested. He
seldom came to her without the excuse of a book to be lent or
borrowed; and he never quitted her without feeling inspired with the
wish to know more, and to be more; he seemed to be lifted to purer
and clearer regions of thought.
Pages:
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412