But
it was a repulsion that held her, because of the constant sense of
reaction, of on-rushing life, which it excited in herself.
Add to these the elements of mischief and defiance in the situation, the
snatching him from Mary, her enemy and slanderer, the defiance of Lady
Grosville and all other hypocritical tyrants, the pride of dragging at
her chariot wheels a man whom most people courted even when they loathed
him, who enjoyed, moreover, an astonishing reputation abroad, especially
in that France which Kitty adored, as a kind of modern Byron, the only
Englishman who could still display in public the "pageant of a bleeding
heart," without making himself ridiculous, and perhaps enough has been
heaped together to explain the infatuation that now, like a wild spring
gust on a shining lake, was threatening to bring Kitty's light bark into
dangerous waters.
"I don't care for him," she said to herself, as she sat thinking alone,
"but I must see him--I
will! And I will talk to him as I please, and
where I please!"
Her small frame stiffened under the obstinacy of her resolution. Kitty's
will at a moment of this kind was a fatality--so strong was it, and so
irrational.
Pages:
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318