His
thoughts came in, like great waves striking on a rocky reef, and
rending themselves in sheets of scattered foam. He seemed to
himself to have been slowly inveigled into his fate by a worse than
malicious power; something had planned his doom. He remembered his
old tranquillities; his little touch of boredom; and then how easy
the descent had been! He had been drawn by a slender thread of
circumstance into paying his visit to Windlow; his friendship with
Jack had just toppled over the balance; he had gone; then there had
come his talk with his aunt, which had wrought him up into a mood
of vague excitement. Just at that moment Maud had come in his way;
then friendship had followed; and then he had been seized with this
devouring passion which had devastated his heart. He had known all
the time that he was too late; and even so he had gone to work the
wrong way: it was his infernal diplomacy, his trick of playing with
other lives, of yielding to emotional intimacies--that fatal desire
to have a definite relation, to mean something to everyone in his
circle. Then this wretched, attractive, pleasant youth, with his
superficial charm, had intervened. If he had been wise he would
never have suggested that visit to Cambridge. Maud had hitherto
been just like Miranda on the island; she had never been brought
into close contact with a young cavalier; and the subtle instinct
of youth had done the rest, the instinct for the equal mate, so far
stronger and more subtle than any reasonable or intellectual
friendship.
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