For all that,
he felt that he was not as near to her now as he had been on certain
evenings in London, when his arrival was to her a manifest pleasure,
and their talk unflagging from hour to hour. She did not show the
spirit of holiday, seemed weary from time to time, was too often
preoccupied and indisposed to talk. True, she had at length
fulfilled her promise of telling him the whole of her story, but
even this increase of confidence Waymark's uneasy mind strangely
converted into fresh source of discomfort to himself. She had made
this revelation--he half believed--on purpose to keep up the
distance between them, to warn him how slight occasion had led her
from what is called the path of virtue, that he might not delude
himself into exaggerated estimates of her character. Such a thought
could of course only be due to the fact that Ida's story had indeed
produced something of this impression upon her hearer. Waymark had
often busied himself with inventing all manner of excuses for her,
had exerted his imagination to the utmost to hit upon some most
irresistible climax of dolorous circumstances to account for her
downfall. He had yet to realise that circumstances are as relative
in their importance as everything else in this world, and that
ofttimes the greatest tragedies revolve on apparently the most
insignificant outward events--personality being all.
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