Like all
women she admired strength in a man above everything else. She
delighted in the thick obstinate growth of his fair hair, in the
breadth of the line of his eyebrows, in the aggressive thrust of
his large nose and long jawbone. She saw in the way his mouth
closed evidence of a will against which opposition would dash
about as dangerously as an egg against a stone wall. There was
no question of his having those birthmarks of success about
which he talked. She saw them--saw nothing of the less
obtrusive--but not less important--marks of weakness which might
have enabled an expert in the reading of faces to reach some
rather depressing conclusion as to the nature and the degree of
that success.
Finally, he burst out with, "Yes, I've made up my mind. I'll do
it! I'm going to New York. I've been fooling away the last five
years here learning a lot, but still idling--drinking--amusing
myself in all kinds of ways. And about a month ago--one night,
as I was rolling home toward dawn--through a driving sleet
storm--do you remember a line in `Paradise Lost'"
"I never read it," interrupted Susan.
"Well--it's where the devils have been kicked out of Heaven and
are lying in agony flat on the burning lake--and Satan rises
up--and marches haughtily out among them--and calls out, `Awake!
Arise! Or forever more be damned!' That's what has happened to
me several times in my life.
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