At
the time she doubtless thought of his coming fame only--or
principally--as it concerned their relations to each other; her
pride in him was to be one phase of her love. Now she was well
aware that no degree of distinction in her husband would be of
much value to her unless she had the pleasure of witnessing its
effect upon others; she must shine with reflected light before an
admiring assembly.
The more conscious she became of this requirement of her nature,
the more clearly did she perceive that her hopes had been founded
on an error. Reardon would never be a great man; he would never
even occupy a prominent place in the estimation of the public.
The two things, Amy knew, might be as different as light and
darkness; but in the grief of her disappointment she would rather
have had him flare into a worthless popularity than flicker down
into total extinction, which it almost seemed was to be his fate.
She knew so well how 'people' were talking of him and her. Even
her unliterary acquaintances understood that Reardon's last novel
had been anything but successful, and they must of course ask
each other how the Reardons were going to live if the business of
novel-writing proved unremunerative.
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