But this woman who had become an inmate of his house, while she
ministered to all the tastes that the Squire had built up as a
screen between himself and either the tragic facts of contemporary
life, or any troublesome philosophizing about them, was yet
gradually, imperceptibly, drawing the screen aside. Her humanity was
developing the feeble shoots of sympathy and conscience in himself.
What she felt, he was beginning to feel; and when she hated anything
he must at least uncomfortably consider why.
But all this she did and achieved through her mere fitness and
delightfulness as a companion. He had never imagined that life would
bring him anybody--least of all a woman--who would both give him so
much, and save him so much. Selfish, exacting, irritable--he knew
very well that he was all three. But it had not prevented this
capable, kind, clever creature from devoting herself to him, from
doing her utmost, not only to save his estate and his income, but to
make his life once more agreeable to him, in spite of the war and
all the rancour and resentments it had stirred up in him.
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