At this point it was by
no means still a relation of flattery on Kitty's side and a pleased
self-love on his. It had become a duel of two personalities, or rather
two imaginations. In fact, as Kitty, learning the ways of his character,
became more proudly mistress of herself and him, his interest in her
visibly increased. It might almost be said that she was beginning to
hold back, and he for the first time pursued.
Once or twice he had the grace to ask himself where it was all to end.
Was he in love with her? An absurd question! He had paid his heavy
tribute to passion if any man ever had, and had already hung up his
votive tablet and his garments wet from shipwreck in the temple of the
god. But it seemed that, after all said and done, the society of a
woman, young, beautiful, and capricious, was still the best thing which
the day--the London day, at all events--had to bring. At Kitty's
suggestion he was collecting and revising a new volume of his poems. He
and she quarrelled over them perpetually. Sometimes there was not a line
which pleased her; and then, again, she would delight him with the
homage of sudden tears in her brown eyes, and a praise so ardent and so
refined that it almost compared--as Kitty meant it should--with that of
the dead.
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