But it was so; and the sacrifice would undoubtedly be made some day. It
would be absurd in one conscious of such high merit to be afraid of the
ordinary social incidents of life. It is the debauched broken drunkard who
should become a teetotaller, and not the healthy, hard-working father of a
family who never drinks a drop of wine till dinner-time. He need not be
afraid of a glass of champagne when, on a chance occasion, he goes to a
picnic. Frank Greystock was now going to his picnic; and, though he meant
to be true to Lucy Morris, he had enjoyed his glass of champagne with
Lizzie Eustace under the rocks. He was thinking a good deal of his
champagne when he lost his way.
What a wonderful woman was his cousin Lizzie, and so unlike any other girl
he had ever seen! How full she was of energy, how courageous, and, then,
how beautiful! No doubt her special treatment of him was sheer flattery.
He told himself that it was so. But, after all, flattery is agreeable.
That she did like him better than anybody else was probable. He could have
no feeling of the injustice he might do to the heart of a woman who at the
very moment that she was expressing her partiality for him was also
expressing her anger that another man would not consent to marry her.
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