with and
what the question of "living," as he put it to her, living by option,
by volition, inevitably took on for its immediate face. She went
straight before her, without weakness, altogether with strength; and
still as she went she was more glad to be alone, for nobody--not Kate
Croy, not Susan Shepherd either--would have wished to rush with her as
she rushed. She had asked him at the last whether, being on foot, she
might go home so, or elsewhere, and he had replied as if almost amused
again at her extravagance: "You're active, luckily, by nature--it's
beautiful: therefore rejoice in it. _Be_ active, without folly--for
you're not foolish: be as active as you can and as you like." That had
been in fact the final push, as well as the touch that most made a
mixture of her consciousness--a strange mixture that tasted at one and
the same time of what she had lost and what had been given her. It was
wonderful to her, while she took her random course, that these
quantities felt so equal: she had been treated--hadn't she?--as if it
were in her power to live; and yet one wasn't treated so--was
one?--unless it came up, quite as much, that one might die. The beauty
of the bloom had gone from the small old sense of safety--that was
distinct: she had left it behind her there forever. But the beauty of
the idea of a great adventure, a big dim experiment or struggle in
which she might, more responsibly than ever before, take a hand, had
been offered her instead. It was as if she had had to pluck off her
breast, to throw away, some friendly ornament, a familiar flower, a
little old jewel, that was part of her daily dress; and to take up and
shoulder as a substitute some queer defensive weapon, a musket, a
spear, a battle-axe conducive possibly in a higher degree to a striking
appearance, but demanding all the effort of the military posture. She
felt this instrument, for that matter, already on her back, so that she
proceeded now in very truth as a soldier on a march--proceeded as if,
for her initiation, the first charge had been sounded. She passed along
unknown streets, over dusty littery ways, between long rows of fronts
not enhanced by the August light; she felt good for miles and only
wanted to get lost; there were moments at corners, where she stopped
and chose her direction, in which she quite lived up to his injunction
to rejoice that she was active. It was like a new pleasure to have so
new a reason; she would affirm, withou