And yet he was compelled to admit to himself that he did not
lover her as he supposed he would love the woman he hoped to make
his wife. Why was his heart so tranquil and his pulse so steady?
Certainly not because of assured success. Why did his regard differ
so radically from Stanton's consuming passion? Should Stanton
win her he felt that he could still seek her society and enjoy her
friendship. The prospect of never winning her himself did not rob
life of its zest and color. On the contrary, he believed that she
would ever be an inspiration, an exquisite ideal realized in actual
life. As such he could not lose her any more than those women whom
poetry, fiction, and history had placed as stars in his firmament,
and this belief so contented him as to awaken surprise.
As he returned from a long and solitary stroll on Monday evening
he soliloquized complacently, "I am making too great a mystery of
it all. She is not an ordinary woman. Why should I feel towards
her the ordinary and conventional love which any woman might evoke?
There is more of spirit than of flesh and blood in her exquisite
organization. Sorrow has refined away every gross and selfish
element, and left a saint towards whom devotion is far more seemly
and natural than passion.
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