"I think I can make my meaning
clear to you--though the parallel isn't precisely an elegant one.
The finest thoroughbred dog in the world, if it is beaten
viciously and cowed in its youth, will always have a latent
taint of nervousness, apprehension, timidity--call it
what you like. Well, it seems to me there's something
like that in your case, Edith. They hurt you too cruelly,
poor girl. I won't say it broke your nerve--but it made
a flaw in it. Just as a soldier's old wound aches when
there's a storm in the air--so your old hurt distracts
and upsets you under certain psychological conditions.
It's a rather clumsy explanation, but I think it does explain."
"Perhaps--I don't know," Edith replied, in a tone
of melancholy reverie. "It makes a very poor creature
out of me, whatever it is."
"I rather lose patience, Edith," her companion
admonished her, gravely. "Nobody has a right
to be so deficient in courage as you allow yourself to be."
"But I'm not a coward," the other protested.
"I could be as brave as anybody--as brave as you are--if
a chance were given me. But of what use is bravery
against a wall twenty feet high? I can't get over it.
I only wound and cripple myself by trying to tear it down,
or break through it.--Oh yes, I know what you say! You say
there is no wall--that it is all an illusion of mine.
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