“If it were not for this gentleman,” she used to think at times, “I should get to fancying there was something wrong with me, I get so many snubs which seem to me uncalled for.” So she felt a certain respect for him: unobtrusive kindness always excited that feeling in her, as perhaps it does in most of us.
At last the snubs ceased to have any effect; when one is subjected to a great deal of that kind of thing it generally happens that way.
For some months before she left the people had become nonentities to her; she was taken up with things which were far more a case of life and death to her than they could ever be.
CHAPTER XVI
As soon as Deborah came out of college she made fresh literary attempts; she was not successful. Now, frequent and continuous failures are depressing, but they usually have the good effect of weeding out the unfit and leaving only the strong. However, she was beginning to feel dispirited. She had tried tragedy, comedy, mixtures, satires, ghost stories, and myths, and everything had failed and been returned. Each rejection had come like a dull thump on the top of her heart, but none perhaps for some years had had quite the same dispiriting effect as the first. Still she had hoped that when once out of college, and with more time to give to writing, she would manage better; but that was not so, the failures still continued. When she had been in the country about a year she went to London for a week’s holiday.
Susan was there and they had a very enjoyable time.
“Do you know, I have a most irresistible longing to have my fortune told,” Deborah said one day during this holiday. “It has been growing on me for some time.”
“I thought you didn’t believe in that kind of thing,” remarked Susan.
“No, I don’t. But I want to try to find out something. Will you come?”
“Oh, yes,” Susan answered; she rather liked the idea.