Gradually she was
raising him to her own level. It is impossible to mix with a lofty
nature and not acquire in time some tincture of its nobler and more
generous sentiments. Herminia was weaning Alan by degrees from the
world; she was teaching him to see that moral purity and moral
earnestness are worth more, after all, than to dwell with purple
hangings in all the tents of iniquity. She was making him
understand and sympathize with the motives which led her stoutly on
to her final martyrdom, which made her submit without a murmur of
discontent to her great renunciation.
As yet, however, there was no hint or forecast of actual martyrdom.
On the contrary, her life flowed in all the halo of a honeymoon. It
was a honeymoon, too, undisturbed by the petty jars and discomforts
of domestic life; she saw Alan too seldom for either ever to lose
the keen sense of fresh delight in the other's presence. When she
met him, she thrilled to the delicate fingertips. Herminia had
planned it so of set purpose. In her reasoned philosophy of life,
she had early decided that 'tis the wear and tear of too close daily
intercourse which turns unawares the lover into the husband; and she
had determined that in her own converse with the man she loved that
cause of disillusion should never intrude itself.
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