It hadn't come into his head that they would talk about a single thing that they hadn't always talked about; it had not even come into his head that the tabu which extended around her was not inviolable.
And then, suddenly, that—He was very careful to assure me that at that time there was no physical motive about his declaration.
It did not appear to him to be a matter of a dark night and a propinquity and so on.
No, it was simply of her effect on the moral side of his life that he appears to have talked.
He said that he never had the slightest notion to enfold her in his arms or so much as to touch her hand.
He swore that he did not touch her hand.
He said that they sat, she at one end of the bench, he at the other; he leaning slightly towards her and she looking straight towards the light of the Casino, her face illuminated by the lamps.
The expression upon her face he could only describe as "queer".
At another time, indeed, he made it appear that he thought she was glad.
It is easy to imagine that she was glad, since at that time she could have had no idea of what was really happening.
Frankly, she adored Edward Ashburnham.
He was for her, in everything that she said at that time, the model of humanity, the hero, the athlete, the father of his country, the law-giver.
So that for her, to be suddenly, intimately and overwhelmingly praised must have been a matter for mere gladness, however overwhelming it were.
It must have been as if a god had approved her handiwork or a king her loyalty.
She just sat still and listened, smiling.
And it seemed to her that all the bitterness of her childhood, the terrors of her tempestuous father, the bewailings of her cruel-tongued mother were suddenly atoned for.
She had her recompense at last.
Because, of course, if you come to figure it out, a sudden pouring forth of passion by a man whom you regard as a cross between a pastor and a father might, to a woman, have the aspect of mere praise for good conduct. It wouldn't, I mean, appear at all in the light of an attempt to gain possession.
The girl, at least, regarded him as firmly anchored to his Leonora.
She had not the slightest inkling of any infidelities.
He had always spoken to her of his wife in terms of reverence and deep affection.
He had given her the idea that he regarded Leonora as absolutely impeccable and as absolutely satisfying.
Their union had appeared to her to be one of those blessed things that are spoken of and contemplated with reverence by her church.
So that, when he spoke of her as being the person he cared most for in the world, she naturally thought that he meant to except Leonora and she was just glad.
It was like a father saying that he approved of a marriageable daughter... And Edward, when he realized what he was doing, curbed his tongue at once.
She was just glad and she went on being just glad.
I suppose that that was the most monstrously wicked thing that Edward Ashburnham ever did in his life.
And yet I am so near to all these people that I cannot think any of them wicked.
It is impossible of me to think of Edward Ashburnham as anything but straight, upright and honourable.
That, I mean, is, in spite of everything, my permanent view of him.
I try at times by dwelling on some of the things that he did to push that image of him away, as you might try to push aside a large pendulum.
But it always comes back—the memory of his innumerable acts of kindness, of his efficiency, of his unspiteful tongue.
He was such a fine fellow.
So I feel myself forced to attempt to excuse him in this as in so many other things.
It is, I have no doubt, a most monstrous thing to attempt to corrupt a young girl just out of a convent.
But I think Edward had no idea at all of corrupting her.
I believe that he simply loved her.
He said that that was the way of it and I, at least, believe him and I believe too that she was the only woman he ever really loved.
He said that that was so; and he did enough to prove it.
And Leonora said that it was so and Leonora knew him to the bottom of his heart.
I have come to be very much of a cynic in these matters; I mean that it is impossible to believe in the permanence of man's or woman's love.
Or, at any rate, it is impossible to believe in the permanence of any early passion.
As I see it, at least, with regard to man, a love affair, a love for any definite woman—is something in the nature of a widening of the experience.
With each new woman that a man is attracted to there appears to come a broadening of the outlook, or, if you like, an acquiring of new territory.
A turn of the eyebrow, a tone of the voice, a queer characteristic gesture—all these things, and it is these things that cause to arise the passion of love—all these things are like so many objects on the horizon of the landscape that tempt a man to walk beyond the horizon, to explore.
He wants to get, as it were, behind those eyebrows with the peculiar turn, as if he desired to see the world with the eyes that they overshadow.
He wants to hear that voice applying itself to every possible proposition, to every possible topic; he wants to see those characteristic gestures against every possible background.
Of the question of the sex-instinct I know very little and I do not think that it counts for very much in a really great passion.
It can be aroused by such nothings—by an untied shoelace, by a glance of the eye in passing—that I think it might be left out of the calculation.
I don't mean to say that any great passion can exist without a desire for consummation. That seems to me to be a commonplace and to be therefore a matter needing no comment at all.