Now was war, and I gazed at the picture within for
encouragement. There was equal sinuous, supple beauty in this form
as in that outline on the Paris card, that lay, perhaps, in the
pocket of every flaneur on the boulevards. I looked at the smooth,
perfect shoulders, and those soft arms that had never yet been drawn
round a lover's neck; at the extreme pride and dignity that lay in
every line of the form that had never been touched by a rough hand.
It swept from me in one gust the thoughts and tendencies struggling
to rise. It brought back all the old revolt from the lowest, all the
old admiration for the highest, in human nature. "Yes, you are worth
it," I muttered, looking hard at the chaste, exquisite pride in face
and form; "you are worth being worthy of, and I will not for an
evening, nor for an hour, make myself a brute that you would despise
if you knew his nature. Whether you ever know or not, what does that
matter? I must know. Shall I come back to feel your inferior? No!
Not a day, nor a night, shall there be, the history of which you
might not read." All my own pride was stirred as I looked at the
portrait of this woman, who, I knew, was absolutely pure, and I
would not now have followed Howard had my life depended on it.
I gave the photograph of Faina, which still stood up against the
wall, a flick that sent it horizontal on the marble, and then, with
Lucia's eyes just above me, I sat down to write.
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