s we know, had
made the reflexion that no one was naturally less preoccupied with the
idea of her dignity, and though Verena put it forward as an excuse for
remaining where they were, it must be admitted that in reality she was
very deficient in the desire to be consistent with herself. Olive had
contributed with all her zeal to the development of Verena's gift; but I
scarcely venture to think now, what she may have said to herself, in the
secrecy of deep meditation, about the consequences of cultivating an
abundant eloquence. Did she say that Verena was attempting to smother
her now in her own phrases? did she view with dismay the fatal effect of
trying to have an answer for everything? From Olive's condition during
these lamentable weeks there is a certain propriety--a delicacy enjoined
by the respect for misfortune--in averting our head. She neither ate nor
slept; she could scarcely speak without bursting into tears; she felt so
implacably, insidiously baffled. She remembered the magnanimity with
which she had declined (the winter before the last) to receive the vow
of eternal maidenhood which she had at first demanded and then put by as
too crude a test, but which Verena, for a precious hour, for ever flown,
would _then_ have been willing to take. She repented of it with
bitterness and rage; and then she asked herself, more desperately still,
whether even if she held that pledge she should be brave enough to
enforce it in the face of actual complications. She believed that if it
were in her power to say, "No, I won't let you off; I have your solemn
word, and I won't!" Verena would bow to that decree and remain with her;
but the magic would have passed out of her spirit for ever, the
sweetness out of their friendship, the efficacy out of their work. She
said to her again and again that she had utterly changed since that hour
she came to her, in New York, after her morning with Mr. Ransom, and
sobbed out that they must hurry away. Then she had been wounded,
outraged, sickened, and in the interval nothing had happened, nothing
but that one exchange of letters, which she knew about, to bring her
round to a shameless tolerance. Shameless Verena admitted it to be; she
assented over and over to this proposition, and explained, as eagerly
each time as if it were the first, what it was that had come to pass,
what it was that had brought her round. It had simply come over her that
she liked him, that this was the true point of