put such wondering from her. Again a certain
proud modesty held her back. She did not want to think of herself in
relation to him, or of him in relation to herself. She wished, for a
reason she refused to define, to exclude the personal element. Doing
that she could permit herself larger latitude of admiration. His
acknowledgment of fellowship with, and obligation of friendship
towards, all victims of physical disaster kindled her enthusiasm. She
perceived that it was contrary to the man's natural arrogance, natural
revolt against the humiliation put upon him--a rather superb
overcoming, in short, of nature by grace. Nor was it the outgrowth of
any morbid or sentimental emotion. It had no tincture of the hysteric
element. It took its rise in conviction and in experiment. For Richard,
though still young, struck her as remarkably mature. He had lived his
life, sinned his sins--she did not doubt that--suffered unusual
sorrows, bought his experience in the open market and at a sufficiently
high price. And this was the result! It pleased her imagination by its
essential unworldliness, its idealism and individuality of outlook. She
went back on her earlier judgment of him, first formulated as a
complaint,--he was strong, whether for good or evil--now unselfishly
for good--and Honoria, being herself among the strong, supremely valued
and welcomed strength. And so it happened that the tone of her
meditations altered, being increasingly attuned to a serious, but very
real congratulation. For she perceived that the tragedy of human life
also constitutes the magnificence of human life, since it affords, and
always must afford, supreme opportunity of heroism.

She had traversed the open space of turf, and come to the tall, iron
hurdles enclosing the paddock. She folded her arms on the topmost bar
of the iron gate and stood there. She wanted to rest a little in these
thoughts that had come to her. She was not quite sure of them as yet.
But, if they meant anything, if they were other than mere rhetoric,
they must mean a very great deal, into harmony with which it would be
necessary to bring her thought upon many other subjects. She was
conscious of an excitement, a reaching out towards some
but-half-disclosed glory, some new and very exquisite fulness of life.
But was it new, after all? Was it not rather the at-last-permitted
activity of faculties and sensibilities hitherto refused development,
voluntarily, perhaps cowardly, held in