"No
wonder he has pushed so far, so fast," reflected she; for she
appreciated that in a man of action manners should always be a
cloak behind which his real campaign forms. It must be a fitting
cloak, it should be a becoming one; But always a cloak. "He fools
everybody, apparently," thought she. "The results of his secret
work alarm them; then, along he comes, with his braggart,
offensive manners, his childish posings, his peacock vanity, and
they are lulled into false security. They think what he did was an
accident that will not happen again. Why, he fooled even ME!"
That is always, with every human being, the supreme test,
necessarily. Usually it means nothing. In this case of Cornelia
Bowker it meant a great deal; for Cornelia Bowker was not easily
fooled. The few who appear in the arena of ambition with no game
to play, with only sentiment and principle to further, the few who
could easily have fooled her cynical, worldly wisdom could safely
be disregarded. She felt it was the part of good sense to look the
young man over again, to make sure that the new light upon him was
not false light. "He may be a mere accident in spite of his
remarkable successes," thought she.
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