She tasted an acrid bitterness that
seemed to impregnate her, to turn the mainspring of her life to gall.
She heard the violent voice of the young Neapolitan saying: "He is
master, he is master, he has always been master here!" And she tried
to look back over her life, and to see how things had been. And,
shaken still by this storm of anger, she felt as if it were true, as
if she had allowed Artois to take her life in his hands and to shape
it according to his will, as if he had been governing her although she
had not known it. He had been the dominant personality in their mutual
friendship. His had been the calling voice, hers the obedient voice
that answered. Only once had she risen to a strong act, an act that
brought great change with it, and that he had been hostile to. That
was when she had married Maurice.
And she had left Maurice for Artois. From Africa had come the calling,
dominant voice. And even in her Garden of Paradise she had heard it.
And even from her Garden of Paradise she had obeyed it.
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