He appeared to demand of
her something that no one else, as it were, had presumed to do. What
she felt was that a territorial, a political, a social magnate had
conceived the design of drawing her into the system in which he rather
invidiously lived and moved. A certain instinct, not imperious, but
persuasive, told her to resist- murmured to her that virtually she had
a system and an orbit of her own. It told her other things besides-
things which both contradicted and confirmed each other; that a girl
might do much worse than trust herself to such a man and that it would
be very interesting to see something of his system from his own
point of view; that on the other hand, however, there was evidently
a great deal of it which she should regard only as a complication of
every hour, and that even in the whole there was something stiff and
stupid which would make it a burden. Furthermore there was a young man
lately come from America who had no system at all, but who had a
character of which it was useless for her to try to persuade herself
that the impression on her mind had been light. The letter she carried
in her pocket all sufficiently reminded her of the contrary.
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