Nevertheless
she would have been glad to be in some way nearer to him. It was not
that it ever occurred to her that she might have married him; even
after the consequences of her actual union had grown vivid to her that
particular reflection, though she indulged in so many, had not had the
assurance to present itself. But on finding herself in trouble he
had become a member of that circle of things with which she wished
to set herself right. I have mentioned how passionately she needed
to feel that her unhappiness should not have come to her through her
own fault. She had no near prospect of dying, and yet she wished to
make her peace with the world-to put her spiritual affairs in order.
It came back to her from time to time that there was an account
still to be settled with Caspar, and she saw herself disposed or
able to settle it to-day on terms easier for him than ever before.
Still, when she learned he was coming to Rome she felt all afraid;
it would be more disagreeable for him than for any one else to make
out-since he would make it out, as over a falsified balance-sheet or
something of that sort-the intimate disarray of her affairs.
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