It would be strange, indeed, if he did not.
You are a noble and a tender woman, and he will be very happy."
In the days that followed, Ida was at first much puzzled to account not
only for the evident genuineness of the esteem which her friends
cherished for her, but for the fact that it seemed to have been enhanced
rather than diminished by the recent events. Instead of regarding her
repentance as at most offsetting her offence, they apparently looked upon
it as a positive virtue redounding wholly to her credit. It was quite as
if she had made amends for another person a sin, in contrast with whose
conduct her own nobility stood out in fine relief.
And that, in fact, is exactly the way they did look at it. Their habit of
distinguishing between the successive phases of an individual life as
distinct persons, made it impossible for them to take any other view of
the matter.
In their eyes the past was good or bad for itself, and the present good
or bad for itself, and an evil past could no more shadow a virtuous
present than a virtuous present could retroact to brighten or redeem an
ugly past.
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