It was not so very long
since Perigal was the suppliant, she the giver; now, the parts were
reversed, except that, whereas she had given without stint, he
withheld that which every wholesome instinct of his being should
urge him to bestow without delay.
She wondered at the reason of the change, till the words he had
spoken on the day of their jaunt to Broughton occurred to her:
"No sooner was one want satisfied than another arose to take its
place. It's a law of nature that ensures the survival of the
fittest, by making men always struggle to win the desire of the
moment."
She had been Perigal's desire, but, once won, another had taken its
place, which, so far as she could see, was sea-fishing. She smiled
grimly at the alteration in his taste. Then, an idea illuminated,
possessed her mind.
"Why not make myself desirable so that he will be eager to win me
again," she thought.
So Mavis, despite the pain in her face, which owing to the spirit
she had drunk was beginning to trouble her again, set out on the
most dismal of all feminine quests--that of endeavouring to make a
worldly, selfish man pay the price of his liberty, and endure
poverty for that which he had already enjoyed to the full.
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