ed him, with a sort of
savage pleasure in the coldness of the words he spoke. He could not
imagine, after this interview, that he could ever think of her again as
his possible wife, and if the idea had presented itself he would have
cast it behind him as a piece of unpardonable weakness. All his former
cynical determination to trust only in what he could do himself, for the
satisfaction of his ambition, returned with renewed strength; and as he
shook hands with the people he met, he felt that he would never again
ask man or woman for anything which he could not take by force. He did
not know that in at least one respect his nature had changed, and that
the love he had lavished on Hermione was a deep-rooted passion, which
had grown and strengthened and spread in his hard character, as the
sculptor adapts the heavy iron framework in the body and limbs of a
great clay statue. In the first sudden revulsion of his feeling, he
thought he could pluck away his love and leave it behind him like an old
garment, and the general contempt with which he regarded his
surroundings after he left Hermione reminded him almost reassuringly of
his old self. If his old self still lived, he could live his old life as
before, without Hermione, and above all, without love. There was a
bitter comfort in the thought that once more he was to look at all
things, at success in everything, at his career, his aims both great and
small, surrounded by obstacles which could be overcome only by main
force, as prizes to be wrested from his fellows by his own unaided
exertions.

He had forgotten that Hermione had been the chiefest aim of his
existence for several months, and at the same time he did not realize
that he loved her in such a way as to make it almost impossible for him
to live without her. It was not in accordance with his character to
relinquish without a struggle, and a very desperate struggle, that for
which he had labored so long, and an outsider would have prophesied that
whosoever would take from Paul Patoff the woman he loved would find that
he had attempted a dangerous thing. Mere senseless anger does not often
last long, and before an hour had passed Paul began to feel those
suspicious little thrusts of pain in the breast and midriff which warn
us that we miss some one we love. For a long time he tried to persuade
himself that he was deceived, because he did not believe himself capable
of such weakness. But the feeling was unmistakable.