Toward Rebecca I had not softened. I was bitterly disappointed in her.
She had been the formless, pliable clay, on which I purposed to prove my
pet theories for development and culture. I had taken her as a perfectly
fresh and untainted being, naively unconscious even, of the elements,
either good or bad, of which her own nature was composed, waiting only
for the hand of a wise and skillful modeller, like myself, to bring her
up to the highest condition of manners and morals.
This elegant superstructure, a purely mental product of my own, had
fallen away, revealing the erring, passionate nature beneath. But, deeply
as I mourned the fall of my idol, I felt still more keenly a sense of
personal injury, because the inner structure on which I had been
building, had not spoken out and said, "I shall contaminate you. I am not
fit for the touch, of your fine hands."
Clearly there could no longer be any sympathy between Rebecca and me. I
avoided any occasion for private interview with the girl. Meeting her
casually in the lane, or at the neighbors' houses, I acknowledged her
presence with a nod or a smile, colder, I knew, than as if I had ignored
her utterly.
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