The slight bluntness in his manner reminded her of
the moral force which she had known only as something to be
resisted; it was now one of the influences that drew her to him. Had
she not always admitted that he stood far above the other men of his
class whom she used to know? Between his mind and hers there was
distinct kinship; the sense that he had both power and right to
judge her explained in a great measure her attitude of defiance
towards him when she was determined to break away from her humble
conditions. All along, had not one of her main incentives to work
and strive been the resolve to justify herself in _his_ view, to
prove to _him_ that she possessed talent, to show herself to _him_
as one whom the world admired? The repugnance with which she thought
of meeting him, when she came home with her father, meant in truth
that she dreaded to be assured that he could only shrink from her.
All her vital force.. setting in this wild current, her self.
deception complete, she experienced the humility of supreme egoism--that
state wherein self multiplies its claims to pity in passionate support
of its demand for the object of desire.
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