..."
And then I knew that they were making her an allowance; it was more than
I wanted to know; the ground was too delicate, and led nowhere in
particular. Still, it was difficult not to take a certain amount of
interest in a handsome woman who had made such a wreck of her life so
young, who was so utterly alone, so proud and independent in her
loneliness, and apparently quite fine-hearted and unspoilt. But for Bob
Evers and his mother, the interest that I took might have been a little
different in kind; but even with my solicitude for them there mingled
already no small consideration for the social solitary whom I watched
now as she sat peering across the glacier, the foremost figure in a
world of high lights and great backgrounds, and whom to watch was to
admire, even against the greatest of them all. Alas! mere admiration
could not change my task or stay my hand; it could but clog me by
destroying my singleness of purpose, and giving me a double heart to
match my double face.
Since, however, a detestable duty had been undertaken, and since as a
duty it was more apparent than I had dreamt of finding it, there was
nothing for it but to go through with the thing and make immediate
enemies of my friends. So I set my teeth and talked of Bob. I was glad
Mrs. Lascelles liked him. His father was a remote connection of mine,
whom I had never met.
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