She was more and
more able to say to herself that he had recovered, and, what is more
to the point, she was able to say it without bitterness. He had been
for her, of old, such an image of urgency, of insistence, of something
to be resisted and reasoned with, that his reappearance at first
menaced her with a new trouble. But she was now reassured; she could
see he only wished to live with her on good terms, that she was to
understand he had forgiven her and was incapable of the bad taste of
making pointed allusions. This was not a form of revenge, of course;
she had no suspicion of his wishing to punish her by an exhibition
of disillusionment; she did him the justice to believe it had simply
occurred to him that she would now take a good-natured interest in
knowing he was resigned. It was the resignation of a healthy, manly
nature, in which sentimental wounds could never fester. British
politics had cured him; she had known they would. She gave an
envious thought to the happier lot of men, who are always free to
plunge into the healing waters of action. Lord Warburton of course
spoke of the past, but he spoke of it without implications; he even
went so far as to allude to their former meeting in Rome as a very
jolly time.
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