She must write this to him, she must convince him, and
that duty was comparatively simple. But what disturbed her, in the
sense that it struck her with wonderment, was this very fact that it
cost her so little to refuse a magnificent "chance." With whatever
qualifications one would, Lord Warburton had offered her a great
opportunity; the situation might have discomforts, might contain
oppressive, might contain narrowing elements, might prove really but a
stupefying anodyne; but she did her sex no injustice in believing that
nineteen women out of twenty would have accommodated themselves to
it without a pang. Why then upon her also should it not irresistibly
impose itself? Who was she, what was she, that she should hold herself
superior? What view of life, what design upon fate, what conception of
happiness, had she that pretended to be larger than these large, these
fabulous occasions? If she wouldn't do such a thing as that then she
must do great things, she must do something greater. Poor Isabel found
ground to remind herself from time to time that she must not be too
proud, and nothing could be more sincere than her prayer to be
delivered from such a danger: the isolation and loneliness of pride
had for her mind the horror of a desert place.
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