A
misunderstanding arose between them, indeed, which is, perhaps, one of
the typical misunderstandings between men and women. The man, impatient
of painful thoughts and recollections, eager to be quit of them as
weakening and unprofitable, determined to silence them by the pleasant
clamor of his own ambitions and desires; the woman, priestess of the
past, clinging to all the pieties of memory, in terror lest she forget
the dead, feeling it a disloyalty even to draw the dagger from the
wound--between these two figures and dispositions there is a deep and
natural antagonism.
It showed itself rapidly in the case of Marsham and Diana; for their
moment of high feeling was no sooner over, and she sitting quietly
again, her hand in his, the blinding tears dashed away, than Marsham's
mind flew inevitably to his own great sacrifice. She must be comforted,
indeed, poor child! yet he could not but feel that he, too, deserved
consolation, and that his own most actual plight was no less worthy of
her thoughts than the ghastly details of a tragedy twenty years old.
Yet she seemed to have forgotten Lady Lucy!--to have no inkling of the
real situation.
Pages:
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369