er.
So that was that, as she put it, definite and matter-of-fact to herself
about it. He had stopped wanting her. Well then, she must stop wanting
him, as speedily as might be. It took a little time. You could not shoot
down the hills of the emotions with the lightning rapidity with which you
shot down the roads. Also, the process was excruciatingly painful. You
had to unmake so many plans, unthink so many thoughts.... Oh, but that
was nothing. You had to hear his voice softened to someone else, see the
smile in his eyes caressing someone else, feel his whole mind, his whole
soul, reaching out in protecting, adoring care to someone else's charm
and loveliness ... as once, as so lately, they had reached out to
yours.... That was torture for the bravest, far worse than any bulls or
seas or precipices could be to Gerda. Yet it had to be gone through, as
Gerda had to leap from towering cliffs into wild seas and ride calmly
among fierce cattle.... When Nan woke in the night it was like toothache,
a sharp, gnawing, searing hell of pain. Memory choked her, bitter
self-anger for joy once rejected and then forever lost took her by the
throat, present desolation drowned her soul in hard, slow tears, jealousy
scorched and seared.

But, now every morning, pride rose, mettlesome and gallant, making her
laugh and talk, so that no one guessed. And with pride, a more reckless
physical daring than usual; a kind of scornful adventurousness, that
courted danger for its own sake, and wordlessly taunted the weaker spirit
with "Follow if you like and can. If you don't like, if you can't, I am
the better woman in that way, though you may be the beloved." And the
more the mettle of the little beloved rose to meet the challenge, the
hotter the pace grew. Perhaps they both felt, without knowing they felt
it, that there was something in Barry which leaped instinctively out to
applaud reckless courage, some element in himself which responded to it
even while he called it foolhardy. You could tell that Barry was of that
type, by the quick glow of his eyes and smile. But the rivalry in daring
was not really for Barry; Barry's choice was made. It was at bottom the
last test of mettle, the ultimate challenge from the loser to the winner,
in the lists chosen by the loser as her own. It was also--for Nan was
something of a bully--the heckling of Gerda. She might have won one game,
and that the most important, but she should be forced to own herself
beat