"
"But that is exactly what I do not see," cried Else, "the art-production
of your life. Where is the climax, where the harmonious close? Is it
aesthetic, is it dignified to pay court to frivolous actresses and
ballet-dancers, and treat the cheap triumph, before and after, as though
it were something important? Does not this humiliate a man of intellect
in his own eyes? And even if----"
She suppressed what she was going to say, and with a sudden digression,
continued:
"Robert, understand at last that happiness is repose. You have had
passion and excitement enough. It is time for you to know something
else; deep and equable as a clear summer evening, without storm and
tempest. And you know where to find such love. Ah, Robert, no one on
earth ever loved you as I have, not one of the women on whom you have
squandered your heart, your intellect, your health. As a girl I
sacrificed for you my pride and my celebrated beauty. You were my first
passion, and you have remained the sun of my existence. As a young widow
I threw myself at your head. You would not accept me.
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