But he
had a very distinct feeling that she had exposed his name to cheap
scandal, and that for nothing.
Had there been anything real behind it, he might have understood,
in his new humility, in his new knowledge of impulses stronger than
any restraints of society, he would quite certainly have made every
allowance. But for a whim, an indulgence of her incorrigible vanity!
To get along, to save Natalie herself, he was stifling the best that
was in him, while Natalie -
That was one view of it. The other was that Natalie was as starved
as he was. If he got nothing from her, he gave her nothing. How
was he to blame her? She was straying along dangerous paths, but
he himself had stood at the edge of the precipice, and looked down.
Suddenly it occurred to him that perhaps, for once, Natalie was in
earnest. Perhaps Rodney was, too. Perhaps each of them had at
last found something that loomed larger than themselves. In that
case? But everything he knew of Natalie contradicted that.
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