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Updated: May 20, 2025
On the other hand, her toleration would be almost certain to have a bad effect upon Bressant, no matter how sincere and well-meaning he might be at the outset.
Sophie had observed it, and secretly blamed herself: she allowed Bressant to monopolize her left Cornelia out in the cold was selfish and thoughtless just because she was happy and so forth: taking herself severely to task, and resolving to amend her behavior forthwith. But there seemed to be some difficulty in the way of consummating her best intentions.
She was inspired and excited by the ideal she had conceived of Bressant, and of her sphere of action with regard to him. But, had the physical personality of the man been thrust upon her in the first place, she would have very likely recoiled, her finer intuitions would have been jarred, and their precision paralyzed.
Bressant, for instance, might surely succeed in consummating his marriage with Sophie, no matter what else he left undone; and that being once irrevocably on his side of the balance, all that was vital to his happiness was secure; by a quick stroke he might capture the fortune likewise, and could then afford to laugh at the world.
Certainly Abbie had no other claim to be considered an amusing spectacle. Had not her revengeful rage upheld her, she must have swooned. But it was a hideous kind of vitality, unwholesome to contemplate. Bressant laughed by main strength. "You can't solace yourself even with that," said he, shaking his head. "Up to three days ago I was as much in ignorance as you.
Bressant could not hear all this, nor would he have known what it meant, if he had; but he could see that Cornelia was kindly disposed toward him, and was conscious of great pleasure in looking at her, and thought, if she were to touch him, he would get well. He said nothing, however, and presently his bodily pain caused him to sigh and close his eyes wearily.
On leaving the table, Bressant sauntered out of the room and on to the balcony, with a disregard of what other people might intend, which caused Cornelia to recollect her first impression of him. Nevertheless, not knowing what else she could do, she followed, and found him leaning over the railing, and looking about him with serene enjoyment.
He thought the adieux of Montague and Ada Dyas as fine as anything he had ever seen Croisette and Bressant do in Paris, or Madge Robertson and Kendal in London; in its reticence, its dumb sorrow, it moved him more than the most famous histrionic outpourings.
But the boy looked up in surprise. "Strange? No! I'm sure it's the most natural thing in the world. How could it have happened otherwise? Should I have been your friend if I had failed you now?" "But do you know every thing?" Bressant demanded less, however, because he doubted that it should be so than as wishing to receive full assurance thereof.
The intellectual animal of two or three months before seemed to have laid aside all claims to what his brain had won for him, and to be beginning existence over again with a new object and new materials. And had Bressant indeed been a child, the succession of his ideas and impulses could hardly have been more primitive and natural.
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