courtship. He had been so different a wooer. She remembered
with some half-conscious desperation of fervour what she had thought of
him at his first approaches, and in accepting him. Had she seen him
with the eyes of the world, thinking they were her own? That look of
his, the look of "indignant contentment", had then been a most noble
conquering look, splendid as a general's plume at the gallop. It could
not have altered. Was it that her eyes had altered?

The spirit of those days rose up within her to reproach, her and
whisper of their renewal: she remembered her rosy dreams and the image
she had of him, her throbbing pride in him, her choking richness of
happiness: and also her vain attempting to be very humble, usually
ending in a carol, quaint to think of, not without charm, but quaint,
puzzling.

Now men whose incomes have been restricted to the extent that they must
live on their capital, soon grow relieved of the forethoughtful anguish
wasting them by the hilarious comforts of the lap upon which they have
sunk back, insomuch that they are apt to solace themselves for their
intolerable anticipations of famine in the household by giving loose to
one fit or more of reckless lavishness. Lovers in like manner live on
their capital from failure of income: they, too, for the sake of
stifling apprehension and piping to the present hour, are lavish of
their stock, so as rapidly to attenuate it: they have their fits of
intoxication in view of coming famine: they force memory into play,
love retrospectively, enter the old house of the past and ravage the
larder, and would gladly, even resolutely, continue in illusion if it
were possible for the broadest honey-store of reminiscences to hold out
for a length of time against a mortal appetite: which in good sooth
stands on the alternative of a consumption of the hive or of the
creature it is for nourishing. Here do lovers show that they are
perishable. More than the poor clay world they need fresh supplies,
right wholesome juices; as it were, life in the burst of the bud,
fruits yet on the tree, rather than potted provender. The latter is
excellent for by-and-by, when there will be a vast deal more to
remember, and appetite shall have but one tooth remaining. Should their
minds perchance have been saturated by their first impressions and have
retained them, loving by the accountable light of reason, they may have
fair harvests, as in the early time; but that case is rare. In