But yet, as men, they have lacked a something, the want of
which has made them small, and poor, and dry. It has never been felt by
such a one that there would be triumph in giving away everything belonging
to him for one little whispered, yielding word, in which there should be
acknowledgment that he had succeeded in making himself master of a human
heart. And there are other men, very many men, who have felt this love,
and have resisted it, feeling it to be unfit that Love should be lord of
all. Frank Greystock had told himself, a score of times, that it would be
unbecoming in him to allow a passion to obtain such mastery of him as to
interfere with his ambition. Could it be right that he who, as a young
man, had already done so much, who might possibly have before him so high
and great a career, should miss that, because he could not resist a
feeling which a little chit of a girl had created in his bosom--a girl
without money, without position, without even beauty; a girl as to whom,
were he to marry her, the world would say, "Oh, heaven! there has Frank
Greystock gone and married a little governess out of old Lady Fawn's
nursery"? And yet he loved her with all his heart, and to-day he had told
her of his love.
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