She must ask Vere, do what she had said to herself that she would not
do. Unless she had the complete confidence of her child she could not
continue to do without the cherishing love she had lost. She saw
herself a cripple, something maimed. Hitherto she had been supported
by blessed human crutches: by Vere, Emile, Gaspare. How heavily she
had leaned upon them! She knew that now. How heavily she must still
lean if she were to continue on her way. And a fierce, an almost
savage something, desperate and therefore arbitrary, said within her:
"I will keep the little that I have: I will--I will."
"The little!" Had she said that? It was wicked of her to say that. But
she had had the wonderful thing. She had held for a brief time the
magic of the world within the hollow of her hands, within the shadow
of her heart. And the others? Children slip from their parents' lives
into the arms of another whose call means more to them than the voices
of those who made them love. Friends drift away, scarcely knowing why,
divided from each other by the innumerable channels that branch from
the main stream of existence.
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