was in renunciation that we rose above the animal
and attained spiritual existence. At that moment it seemed to her that
she could renounce everything but love. Could she renounce her art? But
her art was not a merely personal sacrifice. In the renunciation of her
art she was denying a great gift that had been given to her by Nature,
that had come she knew not whence nor how, but clearly for exercise and
for the admiration of the world. It therefore could not have been given
to her to hide or to waste; she would be held responsible for it. Her
voice was one of her responsibilities; not to cultivate her voice would
be a sort of suicide. This seemed quite clear to her, and she reflected,
and with some personal satisfaction, that she had incurred duties toward
herself. Right and wrong, as Owen said, was a question of time and
place. What was right here was wrong there, but oneself was the one
certain thing, and to remain with her father meant the abandonment of
herself.... She wanted herself! Ah, she wanted to live, and how well she
knew that she was not living, and could never live, in Dulwich. The
nuns! Strange were their renunciations! For they yielded the present
moment, which Owen and a Persian poet called our one possession. She
seemed to see them fading in a pathetic decadence, falling like
etiolated flowers, and their holy simplicities seemed merely pathetic.

And in the exaltation of her resolution to live, her soul melted again
into Owen's kisses, and she drew herself together, and the spasm was so
intense and penetrating that to overcome it she walked across the room
stretching her arms. It seemed to her more than impossible that she
could endure Dulwich any longer. The life of love and art tore at her
heart; always she saw Owen offering her love, fame, wealth; his hands
were full of gifts; he seemed to drop them at her feet, and taking her
in his arms, his lips closed upon hers, and her life seemed to run down
like the last struggling sand in a glass.

Besides this personal desire there was in her brain a strange
alienation. Paris rose up before her, and Italy, and they were so vague
that she hardly knew whether they were remembrances or dreams, and she
was compelled by a force so exterior to herself that she looked round
frightened, as if she believed she would find someone at her elbow. She
did not seem to be alone, there seemed to be others in the room,
presences from which she could not escape; she could n