All seemed gone for which his wife had prized him. Should he accept that,
and in its acceptance take up his life as valetudinarian, his life
forgotten of the world which he had loved to conquer, barren of interest
for the woman whom it had been his strongest passion to win against her
instincts, to hold as it were against her will, and to fascinate in face
of her distaste? Such were the terms offered; Alexander Quisante lay long
hours open-eyed and thought of them. There had come into his head an idea
that attracted him mightily and suited well with his nature, so oddly
mixed of strength and weakness, greatness and smallness, courage and
bravado, the idea of a means by which he might keep the world's applause
and his wife's fascinated interest, aye, and increase them too, till they
should be more intense than they had ever been. That would be a triumph,
played before admiring eyes. But what would be the price of it, and was
the price one that he would pay. It might be the biggest price a mortal
man can pay. So for a few days more Alexander Quisante lay and thought
about it.
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