“How?”
“I don’t suppose success that is won through favour means half so much to the winner as success that is wrenched from Fate by one’s own resolute hands. The only thing is, one wonders so often afterwards if it has been worth while.”
“Do you wonder that?”
“Ah!… don’t I?”
He said nothing, and she went on:
“All the same, I imagine I had to succeed or die. I was built that way. Nothing less than success would have satisfied me. I often crave for quiet, restful happiness now, but if it had been offered then I should have passed it by and struggled blindly for fame. Still, it is hard to think how easily one can take a false step, and suffer for it till the end.”
“Did you do that?”
He turned his eyes to her again, and she saw as sympathy in them that was deeper than any feeling he had shown her yet.
“Yes. I was in a very tight corner, and I took a short cut out. I married for money and influence. The step brought me all I anticipated, but it brought other things as well, that I had chosen not to remember: nausea, ennui, self-disgust, loneliness, emptiness. I think I should never have won through without Hal.”
“And is your husband living?”