evern's silence, (the real
antithesis of which would have been simply the perfect courtesy of
explicit devotion,) she found herself touching with pleasure on the fact
of Richard's brutality. He at least had ventured to insult her. He had
loved her enough to forget himself. He had dared to make himself odious
in her eyes, because he had cast away his sanity. What cared he for the
impression he made? He cared only for the impression he received. The
violence of this reaction, however, was the measure of its duration. It
was impossible that she should walk backward so fast without stumbling.
Brought to her senses by this accident, she became aware that her
judgment was missing. She smiled to herself as she reflected that it had
been taking holiday for a whole afternoon. "Richard was right," she said
to herself. "I am no fool. I can't be a fool if I try. I'm too
thoroughly my father's daughter for that. I love that man, but I love
myself better. Of course, then, I don't deserve to have him. If I loved
him in a way to merit his love, I would sit down this moment and write
him a note telling him that if he does not come back to me, I shall die.
But I shall neither write the note nor die. I shall live and grow stout,
and look after my chickens and my flowers and my colts, and thank the
Lord in my old age that I have never done anything unwomanly. Well! I'm
as He made me. Whether I can deceive others, I know not; but I certainly
can't deceive myself. I'm quite as sharp as Gertrude Whittaker; and this
it is that has kept me from making a fool of myself and writing to poor
Richard the note that I wouldn't write to Captain Severn. I needed to
fancy myself wronged. I suffer so little! I needed a sensation! So,
shrewd Yankee that I am, I thought I would get one cheaply by taking up
that unhappy boy! Heaven preserve me from the heroics, especially the
economical heroics! The one heroic course possible, I decline. What,
then, have I to complain of? Must I tear my hair because a man of taste
has resisted my unspeakable charms? To be charming, you must be charmed
yourself, or at least you must be able to be charmed; and that
apparently I'm not. I didn't love him, or he would have known it. Love
gets love, and no-love gets none."

But at this point of her meditations Gertrude almost broke down. She
felt that she was assigning herself but a dreary future. Never to be
loved but by such a one as Richard Clare was a cheerless prospect; for
i