She was before the tragic hour, appearing in the lives of many
women, when suddenly, as by the opening of a door, one realizes
the irrevocable aspect of a marriage of which the details are
beginning to be arranged. That hour in which a woman must
consider, finally, the clipping of all threads, except the single
one that shall cord her to a mate for life.
Until to-night, in spite of preparations on the way, the girl had
not felt this marriage as inevitable. Her aunt had pressed for
it, subtly, invisibly, as an older woman is able to do.
Her situation was always, clearly before her. She was alone in
the world; with very little, almost nothing. The estate her
father inherited he had finally spent in making great
explorations. There was no unknown taste of the world that he
had not undertaken to enter. The final driblets of his fortune
had gone into his last adventure in the Great Gobi Desert from
which he had never returned.
The girl had been taken by this aunt in London, incredibly rich,
but on the fringes of the fashionable society of England, which
she longed to enter. Even to the young girl, her aunt's plan was
visible.
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