Entering the world she discovered
that ideal to be unattainable because the world is too prudent to
be sincere. Then she hoped that she could find the truth of life an
ambition which she understood as a lifelong devotion to some unselfish
ideal. Mr. Travers' name was on men's lips; he seemed capable of
enthusiasm and of devotion; he impressed her imagination by his
impenetrability. She married him, found him enthusiastically devoted to
the nursing of his own career, and had nothing to hope for now.
That her husband should be bewildered by the curious misunderstanding
which had taken place and also permanently grieved by her disloyalty
to his respectable ideals was only natural. He was, however, perfectly
satisfied with her beauty, her brilliance, and her useful connections.
She was admired, she was envied; she was surrounded by splendour and
adulation; the days went on rapid, brilliant, uniform, without a glimpse
of sincerity or true passion, without a single true emotion--not even
that of a great sorrow. And swiftly and stealthily they had led her on
and on, to this evening, to this coast, to this sea, to this moment of
time and to this spot on the earth's surface where she felt unerringly
that the moving shadow of the unbroken night had stood still to remain
with her forever.
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