ored possibilities of seductive self-deceit, sweet illusions, lovely
falsities.

She could no more stop its advance now, straight though it made its way
over treasures she fain would keep, than she could stop the beating of
her heart.

A ruthless question or two . . . "Why did you say that about what a
modern, free European woman would do in your place? Are you trying to
play up to some trumpery notion of a role to fill? And more than this,
did you really mean in your heart an actual, living woman of another
race, such as you knew in Europe; or did you mean somebody in an
Italian, or a French, or a Scandinavian book?" Marise writhed against
the indignity of this, protested fiercely, angrily against the
incriminating imputation in it . . . and with the same breath admitted it
true.

It was true. She was horrified and lost in grief and humiliation at the
cheapened aspect of what had looked so rich before. Had there been in
truth an element of such trashy copying of the conventional pose of
revolt in what had seemed so rushingly spontaneous? Oh no, no . . . not
that!

She turned away and away from the possibility that she had been
partially living up to other people's ideas, finding it intolerable; and
was met again and again by the relentless thrust of that acquired
honesty of thought which had worn such deep grooves in her mind in all
these years of unbroken practice of it. "You are not somebody in a book,
you are not a symbol of modern woman who must make the gestures
appropriate for your part . . ." One by one, that relentless power seated
in her many-colored tumultuous heart put out the flaring torches.

It had grown too strong for her, that habit of honesty of thought and
action. If this struggle with it had come years before she could have
mastered it, flinging against it the irresistible suppleness and
lightness of her ignorant youth. But now, freighted heavily with
experience of reality, she could not turn and bend quickly enough to
escape it.

It had profited too well by all those honest years with Neale . . . never
to have been weakened by a falsehood between them, by a shade of
pretense of something more, or different from what really was there.
That habit held her mercilessly to see what was there now. She could no
more look at what was there and think it something else, than she could
look with her physical eyes at a tree and call it a dragon.

If it had only been traditional morality, reproaching he