"
I made some laughing answer; but, in fact, Susie's frank analysis of
the situation poignantly kindled an imagination which stood in no need
of stimulus. Ah, if this were the Golden Age, when love never went
astray, how happy we might be! But it is not the Golden Age--far from
it! Meanwhile, I think I can assert, with a clear conscience, that no
dishonorable purpose possessed me. I loved Ethel too profoundly to wish
to do her wrong. Yet I may have wished--I did wish--that a kindly
Providence might have seen fit to remove the disabilities that
controlled us. If a wish could have removed Courtney painlessly to
another world, I think I should have wished it. There was something
exquisitely touching in Ethel's appearance and manner. She is as pure
as any woman that ever lived; but she is a woman! and I felt that, for
this day, I had a man's power over her. Occasionally I was conscious
that her eyes were resting on my face; when I addressed her, her aspect
softened and brightened; she fell into little moods of preoccupation
from which she would emerge with a sigh; in many ways she betrayed,
without knowing it, the secret that neither of us would mention.
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