She did not tell anyone of her new interest in life. Strongest in that
student community, she had used her power with good-nature enough to
win the popularity of a school leader, and occasionally with
unscrupulousness enough to secure the privileges of a school bully.
Popularity and privilege, however, only satisfied her when she was in
the mood for them. Girls, like men, want to be petted, pitied, and made
much of, when they are diffident, in low spirits, or in unrequited love.
These are services which the weak cannot render to the strong and which
the strong will not render to the weak, except when there is also a
difference of sex. Agatha knew by experience that though a weak woman
cannot understand why her stronger sister should wish to lean upon her,
she may triumph in the fact without understanding it, and give chaff
instead of consolation. Agatha wanted to be understood and not to be
chaffed. Finding herself unable to satisfy both these conditions, she
resolved to do without sympathy and to hold her tongue. She had often
had to do so before, and she was helped on this occasion by a sense of
the ridiculous appearance her passion might wear in the vulgar eye. Her
secret kept itself, as she was supposed in the college to be insensible
to the softer emotions. Love wrought no external change upon her. It
made her believe that she had left her girlhood behind her and was now
a woman with a newly-developed heart capacity at which she would
childishly have scoffed a little while before. She felt ashamed of the
bee on the window pane, although it somehow buzzed as frequently as
before in spite of her. Her calendar, formerly a monotonous cycle of
class times, meal times, play times, and bed time, was now irregularly
divided by walks past the chalet and accidental glimpses of its tenant.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account