The spirit has its risings and settings of
sun and moon, its seasons, its clouds and stars, its solstices, its
tides, its winds, its storms, its earthquakes--infinite vitality
in endless fluctuation. To rule these changes, Florimel had
neither the power that comes of love, nor the strength that comes
of obedience. What of conscience she had was not yet conscience
toward God, which is the guide to freedom, but conscience toward
society, which is the slave of a fool. It was no wonder then that
Lenorme, believing--hoping she loved him, should find her hard
to understand. He said hard; but sometimes he meant impossible. He
loved as a man loves who has thought seriously, speculated, tried
to understand; whose love therefore is consistent with itself,
harmonious with its nature and history, changing only in form and
growth, never in substance and character. Hence the idea of Florimel
became in his mind the centre of perplexing thought; the unrest
of her being metamorphosed on the way, passed over into his, and
troubled him sorely. Neither was his mind altogether free of the
dread of reproach. For self reproach he could find little or no
ground, seeing that to pity her much for the loss of consideration
her marriage with him would involve, would be to undervalue the honesty
of his love and the worth of his art; and indeed her position was
so independently based that she could not lose it even by marrying
one who had not the social standing of a brewer or a stockbroker;
but his pride was uneasy under the foreseen criticism that his
selfishness had taken advantage of her youth and inexperience to
work on the mind of an ignorant girl--a criticism not likely to
be the less indignant that those who passed it would, without a
shadow of compunction, have handed her over, body, soul, and goods,
to one of their own order, had he belonged to the very canaille of
the race.
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