She would have shared
poverty with him gladly if he would continue to be "a true Southerner," in
other words, one who submitted in cold and unrelenting protest to the new
order of things. In accepting this new order, and in availing himself of
it to advance his fortunes and those of his State as he also claimed, he
alienated her in spite of all his arguments, and his avowed love. She felt
that he should take the ground with her that they had suffered too deeply,
and had been wronged too greatly, to ignore the past. They were a
conquered people, but so were the Poles and Alsatians. Were those subject
races ready to take the hands that had struck them and still held them in
thraldom? Their indignant enmity was patriotism, not hate. Now that the
habitual thoughts of her life had been given time to resume their control,
she felt all the more bitterly what seemed a hopeless separation. The
North had not only robbed her of kindred and property, but was now taking
her lover. She knew she loved him, yet not for the sake of her love would
she be false to her deep-rooted feelings and convictions. If he had seen
how nearly she yielded to _him_, not to his views, the previous evening,
it would have been doubly hard to show him in the end that she could never
share in his life, unless he adopted her attitude of passive submission to
what could not be helped.
Others might do as they pleased, but their dignity and personal memories
required this position, and, as she had said to him, she could take no
other course without hypocrisy, revolting alike to her feelings and sense
of honor.
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