These words, spoken with the solemnity of a prophetic admonition, pierced Anna’s consciousness.
A faint cry, as if in remonstrance, broke from her lips, but already Gregory had turned, and before she could speak she found herself alone.
With strong control Anna returned, and mingled with her guests without perceptible change of manner. When, however, the last carriage had rolled down the street, and the house itself was dark and still, she escaped alone to her own room to live over and over again that strange summons and challenge of John Gregory.
Now the sense of what he had said roused her to burning indignation and protest, and again to contrition. She knew that she was blameless and approved if tried by the standards of the people now about her, and they were the irreproachable, church-going people of Fulham. She was simply conforming to the demands of an orderly and balanced social life, and pleasing those most interested in her. But she also knew that, as tried by the standards of her father, and her own early convictions, in the social and intellectual ambitions which now animated her, she was learning to love “the world and the things of the world,” to know “the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life.” The voice of her past spoke clearly through the voice of John Gregory and must be heard. The things which she had thought to put away forever in the solemn dedication of her girlhood had gradually returned, and silently established themselves in her life in the guise of duties, necessities, conformities to the wishes of others.
But of late she had come to regard those early scruples almost as superstitious. Where lay the absolute right—the truth? the will of God concerning her? Why was life so hard? Why was it impossible to even know the good? What right had John Gregory to spoil, as he had spoiled, this latest development of life for her, and give her nothing in its place? She resented his interference, and yet felt that she should inevitably yield herself to its influence.
CHAPTER XXI
My thwarted woman-thoughts have inward turned,
And that vain milk like acid in me eats.
Have I not in my thought trained little feet
To venture, and taught little lips to move