And now
all this was changed. The gentle acolyte was gone, the censer no longer
swung, and instead there was a keen critic armed with words as hard as
stones. No, there was nothing strange in the fact that, when William
Pressley finally turned his gaze on Ruth, he looked at her as if she had
been a stranger whom he had never seen before; an utter stranger, and
one moreover whose presence was so utterly antagonistic to him that
there was not the remotest possibility of any liking between them. But
he said nothing, and gave no indication of what he felt. No feeling was
ever strong enough to cause him to say or do an unconsidered thing. In
this, as in all things, he waited to be sure that he was doing what
would place himself in the best possible light. While he had never a
moment's doubt of being wholly in the right, he thought it best to wait
and consider his own appearance in the matter. And then, just at that
time, political affairs were claiming his first attention, for that was
a period of intense public stress.
XIV
A SPIRITUAL CENTAUR
The whole wilderness, the whole country, the whole heart of the nation,
was now aflame over the coming conflict at Tippecanoe.
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