From
them all life seemed to radiate; the very words of books were steeped
in radiance. She then became haunted by a suspicion which she was so
reluctant to face that she welcomed a trip and stumble over the grass
because thus her attention was dispersed, but in a second it had
collected itself again. Unconsciously she had been walking faster and
faster, her body trying to outrun her mind; but she was now on the
summit of a little hillock of earth which rose above the river and
displayed the valley. She was no longer able to juggle with several
ideas, but must deal with the most persistent, and a kind of melancholy
replaced her excitement. She sank down on to the earth clasping her
knees together, and looking blankly in front of her. For some time she
observed a great yellow butterfly, which was opening and closing its
wings very slowly on a little flat stone.
"What is it to be in love?" she demanded, after a long silence; each
word as it came into being seemed to shove itself out into an unknown
sea. Hypnotised by the wings of the butterfly, and awed by the discovery
of a terrible possibility in life, she sat for some time longer. When
the butterfly flew away, she rose, and with her two books beneath her
arm returned home again, much as a soldier prepared for battle.
Chapter XIV
The sun of that same day going down, dusk was saluted as usual at the
hotel by an instantaneous sparkle of electric lights.
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