With doubts, because the aspiration had been so
laid waste in her youth. With resentments, because of the wrong
that had been done her, if it were indeed a whisper of the truth.
Upon a nature long accustomed to self-suppression, thus torn and
divided, the Harthouse philosophy came as a relief and
justification. Everything being hollow and worthless, she had
missed nothing and sacrificed nothing. What did it matter, she had
said to her father, when he proposed her husband. What did it
matter, she said still. With a scornful self-reliance, she asked
herself, What did anything matter - and went on.
Towards what? Step by step, onward and downward, towards some end,
yet so gradually, that she believed herself to remain motionless.
As to Mr. Harthouse, whither he tended, he neither considered nor
cared. He had no particular design or plan before him: no
energetic wickedness ruffled his lassitude. He was as much amused
and interested, at present, as it became so fine a gentleman to be;
perhaps even more than it would have been consistent with his
reputation to confess.
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