Her callous glee shocks you. You mentally expect her to be
forever engaged in the tearful contemplation of her own tragic
fate; wrapt up in those she has lost, like the mourners in a Pieta.
Whenever you have thought of her, you have connected her in your
mind with that one fact in her history, which perhaps may have
happened a great many years ago. But to you, it is as yesterday.
You forget that since then many things have occurred to her. She
has lived her life; she has learned to smile; human nature itself
cannot feed for years on the continuous contemplation of its own
deepest sorrows. It even jars you to find that the widow of a
patriotic martyr, a murdered missionary, has her moments of
enjoyment, and must wither away without them.
So, just at first, Harvey Kynaston was afraid to let Herminia see
how sincerely he admired her. He thought of her rather as one
whose life is spent, who can bring to the banquet but the cold dead
ashes of a past existence. Gradually, however, as he saw more and
more of her, it began to strike him that Herminia was still in all
essentials a woman.
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