than diminution. And this attraction affected
her morally, producing in her modesties, reticencies of speech, even of
thought, and prickings of unflattering self-criticism unknown to her
heretofore. Her ultimate purpose might not be virtuous. But undeniably,
such is the complexity--not to say hypocrisy--of the human heart, the
prosecution of that purpose developed in her a surprising sensibility
of conscience. Many episodes in her career, hitherto regarded as
entertaining, she ceased to view with toleration, let alone
complacency. The remembrance of them made her nervous. What if Richard
came to hear of them? The effect might be disastrous. Not that he was
any saint, but that she perceived that, with the fine inconsistency
common to most well-bred Englishmen, he demanded from the women of his
family quite other standards of conduct to those which he himself
obeyed. Other women might do as they pleased. Their lapses from the
stricter social code were no concern of his. He might, indeed, be not
wholly averse to profiting by such lapses. But in respect of the women
of his own rank and blood the case was quite otherwise. He was
alarmingly capable of disgust. And, not a little to her own surprise,
fear of provoking, however slightly, that disgust had become a reigning
power with her. Never had she felt as she now felt. Her own sensations
at once captivated and astonished her. This had ceased to be an
adventure dictated by merry devilry, undertaken out of lightness of
heart, inspired by a mischievous desire to see dust whirl and straws
fly, or undertaken even out of necessity to support self-satisfaction
by ranging herself with cynical audacity on the side of the Eternal
Laughter. This was serious. It was desperate--the crisis, as she told
herself, of her life and fate. The result was singular. Never had she
been more vividly, more electrically, alive. Never had she been more
diffident and self-distrustful.

And this complexity of sensation served to press home on her the high
desirability of insurance against accident, of washing clean, as far as
might be possible, the surface of the slate. So it followed that now,
standing in the chequer-work of sunshine within the great basilica,
self-congratulation awoke in her. The lately concluded ceremony, some
of the details of which had really been most distasteful, might or
might not be of vital efficacy, but, in any case, she had courageously
done her part. Therefore, if Holy Chur