oper study
she could at least become a professional of the first rank, although she
lacked the genius of creation. Her parents and an older sister--one of
the plain, domestic, unselfish kind, whose pleasure is in living for
others--were horrified at the bare suggestion. Not only because they
were old-fashioned--some of the most old-fashioned people on earth are
in San Francisco--but because it would mean separation from their idol.
They surrounded her like a flaming belt, not even a man could get at
her. They worshipped her as if she was a being of another world,
devoured her; all the treasures of life were centred in her. That there
might be the less temptation, they never took her to Europe; and
gradually induced her to lay aside the instrument altogether. She was
very sweet and gentle, and she loved them and submitted (I would have
throttled them all). But she faded rapidly, lost her lovely coloring and
animation, and she had no other beauty. Then her father speculated and
failed. While they were undergoing real privations the influenza swooped
down upon them and carried off the three older members of the family in
a week. Anne Montgomery is the most conspicuous victim of what are
generally supposed to be the higher affections that I know. They were
just commonplace animals--those three--nothing more."

"Real happiness may lie in forgetting that love is selfish, and in
overlooking the bitter in the sweet."

Isabel shrugged her shoulders. "If one can be happy without love why run
the risks?"

They felt that they had exhausted the subject for the present and there
was a long silence. Gwynne's eyes wandered over the inexpressibly
desolate and sinister landscape. The intense brilliancy of the moon
seemed to press darkness down upon the earth. It was true that every
object was as sharp of outline as if cut against crystal, but they were
a hard dark brown: the hills that jutted out into the windings of the
marsh, the marsh itself, the more distant mountains. It looked like a
landscape upon which the sun had set for ever, smitten with death--or
not yet born into the solar system; some terrible formless menacing
globe on the edge of the Universe. As he had approached San Francisco on
the afternoon of his arrival, standing on the forward deck of the boat
in a high wind, he had thought it the most stranded lonely city he had
ever seen. He recalled the impression now, and in a flash he appreciated
the Californian's attitude