To this type a vow is irrefragable. Loyalty is inherent in her like
her blood. She never changes. What feminine inconsistencies she had
at fifteen she retains at five-and-twenty, and preserves to add to the
charms of her old age. She is the exemplary wife, the great-hearted
mother of children. She has sent her sons in thousands to fight her
country's battles overseas. Those things which lie in the outer temper
of her soul she gives lavishly. That which is hidden in her inner shrine
has to be wrested from her by the one hand she loves. Was mine that
hand?
It will be perceived that I was beginning to take life seriously.
Eleanor must have also perceived something of the sort; for during our
talk she said irrelevantly:
"You've changed!"
"In what way?" I asked.
"I don't know. You're not the same as you were. I seem to know you
better in some ways, and yet I seem to know you less. Why is it?"
I said, "No one can go through the Valley of the Grotesque as I have
done without suffering some change.
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