At the risk of adding to the evidence
of her self-sufficiency it must be said that there had been moments
when this possibility of admiration by a personage represented to
her an aggression almost to the degree of an affront, quite to the
degree of an inconvenience. She had never yet known a personage; there
had been no personages, in this sense, in her life; there were
probably none such at all in her native land. When she had thought
of individual eminence she had thought of it on the basis of character
and wit- of what one might like in a gentleman's mind and in his talk.
She herself was a character- she couldn't help being aware of that;
and hitherto her visions of a completed consciousness had connected
themselves largely with moral images- things as to which the
question would be whether they pleased her sublime soul. Lord
Warburton loomed up before her, largely and brightly, as a
collection of attributes and powers which were not to be measured by
this simple rule, but which demanded a different sort of appreciation-
an appreciation that the girl, with her habit of judging quickly and
freely, felt she lacked patience to bestow.
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