It affected him now in neither way.
It was a beautiful picture—it was the picture of a beautiful young woman. He acknowledged the beauty with generous appreciation. But he felt no inclination to go on staring, moonstruck, upon it; neither did he feel the impulse to thrust it hurriedly out of sight, as something with power to rend.
It neither troubled him nor invited—though the girl was beautiful enough, he continued to admit. So were her pearls—and neither were genuine, thought Barry with more humor than a former adorer has any right to feel.
Then he amended his thought. Something of her was real—the invitation in that letter—the inclination that he had always known she felt. It was just because it was a genuine impulse in her that he realized how strong was the calculation in her that had always been able to keep the errant inclination in check.
And even when he was going to war . . . She had envisaged her future so shrewdly—either as wife or widow, he was certain, that she had given the photograph and not her hand.
Later, Bob Martin became unavailable. And he, himself, acquired an income.
It was not the income that tempted her, he was clearly aware, and he did her and himself the justice to perceive that it was the inclination which prompted the invitation—but the inclination could now feel itself supported by an approving worldly conscience.
He wondered now at the long struggle of his senses. He wondered at the death pangs of infatuation.
Once more he looked at the picture in a puzzled way as if to make sure that the thing he felt—and the thing he didn't feel—were indubitably real, and then he rose with a curious sense of lightness and yet sobriety, and, straightening his shoulders as if a burden had fallen from them, he retraced his steps towards the cabin.
At the doorway he paused, for he heard Maria Angelina singing. Then he spoke her name.