The true artist knows
that his hero must be a character shaping events and shaped by them,
and not a babbler about literature. Frank, also, was so susceptible.
He liked to hear her read to him, and her enthusiasm would soon be
his. Moreover, how gifted he was, unconsciously, with all that makes
a man admirable, with courage, with perfect unselfishness! How
handsome he was, and then his passion for her! She had read
something of passion, but she never knew till now what the white
intensity of its flame in a man could be. She was committed, too,
happily committed; it was an engagement.
Thus, whenever doubt obtruded itself, she poured a self-raised tide
over it and concealed it. Alas! it could not be washed away; it was
a little sharp rock based beneath the ocean's depths, and when the
water ran low its dark point reappeared. She was more successful,
however, than many women would have been, for, although her interest
in ideas was deep, there was fire in her blood, and Frank's arm
around her made the world well nigh disappear; her surrender was
entire, and if Sinai had thundered in her ears she would not have
heard. She was destitute of that power, which her sister possessed,
of surveying herself from a distance. On the contrary, her emotion
enveloped her, and the safeguard of reflection on it was impossible
to her.
As to Frank, no doubt ever approached him.
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