I see your danger still, but I see other things too, and I have
recovered my balance. You must be safe, Verena--you must be saved; but
your safety must not come from your having tied your hands. It must come
from the growth of your perception; from your seeing things, of
yourself, sincerely and with conviction, in the light in which I see
them; from your feeling that for your work your freedom is essential,
and that there is no freedom for you and me save in religiously _not_
doing what you will often be asked to do--and I never!" Miss Chancellor
brought out these last words with a proud jerk which was not without its
pathos. "Don't promise, don't promise!" she went on. "I would far rather
you didn't. But don't fail me--don't fail me, or I shall die!"
Her manner of repairing her inconsistency was altogether feminine: she
wished to extract a certainty at the same time that she wished to
deprecate a pledge, and she would have been delighted to put Verena into
the enjoyment of that freedom which was so important for her by
preventing her exercising it in a particular direction. The girl was now
completely under her influence; she had latent curiosities and
distractions--left to herself, she was not always thinking of the
unhappiness of women; but the touch of Olive's tone worked a spell, and
she found something to which at least a portion of her nature turned
with eagerness in her companion's wider knowledge, her elevation of
view.
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