It must be remembered that
she had had no mother since her childhood, that she was now but
a girl, and that the passion of a girl to that of a woman is "as
moonlight unto sunlight, and as water unto wine." Of genuine love
she had little more than enough to serve as salt to the passion;
and passion, however bewitching, yea, entrancing a condition, may
yet be of more worth than that induced by opium or hashish, and
a capacity for it may be conjoined with anything or everything
contemptible and unmanly or unwomanly. In Florimel's case, however,
there was chiefly much of the childish in it. Definitely separated
from Lenorme, she would have been merry again in a fortnight; and
yet, though she half knew this herself, and at the same time was
more than half ashamed of the whole affair, she did not give it up
--would not--only intended by and by to let it go, and meantime
gave--occasionally--pretty free flutter to the half grown wings
of her fancy.
Her liking for the painter had therefore, not unnaturally, its
fits. It was subject in a measure to the nature of the engagements
she had--that is, to the degree of pleasure she expected from
them; it was subject, as we have seen, to skilful battery from the
guns of her chaperon's entrenchment; and more than to either was
it subject to those delicate changes of condition which in the
microcosm are as frequent, and as varied both in kind and degree,
as in the macrocosm.
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