d to be, could
only give her pain; yet there was a spell upon her as she listened; it
was in her nature to be easily submissive, to like being overborne. She
could be silent when people insisted, and silent without acrimony. Her
whole relation to Olive was a kind of tacit, tender assent to passionate
insistence, and if this had ended by being easy and agreeable to her
(and indeed had never been anything else), it may be supposed that the
struggle of yielding to a will which she felt to be stronger even than
Olive's was not of long duration. Ransom's will had the effect of making
her linger even while she knew the afternoon was going on, that Olive
would have come back and found her still absent, and would have been
submerged again in the bitter waves of anxiety. She saw her, in fact, as
she must be at that moment, posted at the window of her room in Tenth
Street, watching for some sign of her return, listening for her step on
the staircase, her voice in the hall. Verena looked at this image as at
a painted picture, perceived all it represented, every detail. If it
didn't move her more, make her start to her feet, dart away from Basil
Ransom and hurry back to her friend, this was because the very torment
to which she was conscious of subjecting that friend made her say to
herself that it must be the very last. This was the last time she could
ever sit by Mr. Ransom and hear him express himself in a manner that
interfered so with her life; the ordeal had been so personal and so
complete that she forgot, for the moment, it was also the first time it
had occurred. It might have been going on for months. She was perfectly
aware that it could bring them to nothing, for one must lead one's own
life; it was impossible to lead the life of another, especially when
that other was so different, so arbitrary and unscrupulous.

XXXIV

"I presume you are the only person in this country who feels as you do,"
she observed at last.

"Not the only person who feels so, but very possibly the only person who
thinks so. I have an idea that my convictions exist in a vague,
unformulated state in the minds of a great many of my fellow-citizens.
If I should succeed some day in giving them adequate expression I should
simply put into shape the slumbering instincts of an important
minority."

"I am glad you admit it's a minority!" Verena exclaimed. "That's
fortunate for us poor creatures. And what do you call adequate
expression? I pre