He took
all that he did lightly, and achieved by an intense momentary
concentration what she could only achieve by slow reflection. This
devotion had in it something that was strangely pathetic, because it
took the form in her of making her wish to conciliate the boy's
admiration, by treating thoughts and ideas with a lightness and a humour
to which she could by no means attain, and which made things worse
rather than better, because she could read so easily, in the thoughts of
others, the impression that she was attempting a handling of topics
which she could not in the least accomplish. But advice was useless.
There it was, the old, fierce, constraining attraction of love, as it
had been of old, making havoc of comfortable arrangements, attempting
the impossible; and yet one knew that she would gain by the process,
that she was opening a door in her heart that had hitherto been closed,
and learning a largeness of view and sympathy in the process. Her fault
had ever been, no doubt, to estimate slow and accurate methods too
highly, and to believe that all was insecure and untrustworthy that was
not painfully accumulated.
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