Every evening
Mounser Green called and sent up tender enquiries; but in all this
there was very little to comfort her. There she lay with the letter
in her hand, thinking that the only man who had endeavoured to be
of service to her was he whom she had treated with unexampled
perfidy. Other men had petted her, had amused themselves with her,
and then thrown her over, had lied to her and laughed at her, till
she had been taught to think that a man was a heartless, cruel,
slippery animal, made indeed to be caught occasionally, but in the
catching of which infinite skill was wanted, and in which infinite
skill might be thrown away. But this man had been true to her to
the last in spite of her treachery!
She knew that she was heartless herself, and that she belonged to a
heartless world;--but she knew also that there was a world of women
who were not heartless. Such women had looked down upon her as from
a great height, but she in return had been able to ridicule them.
They had chosen their part, and she had chosen hers,--and had
thought that she might climb to the glory of wealth and rank, while
they would have to marry hard-working clergymen and briefless
barristers. She had often been called upon to vindicate to herself
the part she had chosen, and had always done so by magnifying in
her own mind the sin of the men with whom she had to deal.
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