"
"I am afraid you are right," said Charlie Lloyd. "So many of our best
women--I mean the women who are likely to make most impression on the
age--are going that way now."
"But what horrid things you say, Ideala," one of the ladies chimed in,
"and you make everybody else say horrid things. That 'Passion of
Delysle' is not a bit worse than Tennyson's 'Fatima'--and there's a lot
more in it--that part about 'the roll of worlds,' you know, is quite
grand."
"I always liked that idea," Ideala observed.
"And--and--" the lady continued, "where she looks at everything, you
know. She was very properly seeking distraction, and found it for a
moment in the contemplation of nature, and that softened her mood, so
that when the inevitable rush of recollection comes and forces the
thought of him back upon her, her feeling finds expression in a prayer
--instead of--instead of--"
"A blasphemous remonstrance," Ideala put in. "Oh, I don't deny that
there is just enough to be said in favour of all these things to make
them sell--and this one has two unusual points of interest. It opens
with a riddle, and the lady's lover is a priest, which gives an
additional zest to the charm of wrong-doing, a _sauce piquante_ for
jaded appetites.
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