The only quarrel I remember
to have had with her was when I lapsed into some commonplace jest about
her intimacy with a music-master who gave her lessons. The way in which
she took that jest I shall never forget. If I had made it to any other
woman, I should have passed on, unconscious of anything inconsistent
with myself, but she in an instant made me aware with hardly half a
dozen words that I had disgraced myself. I was ashamed, not so much
because I had done what was in the abstract wrong, but because it was
something which was not in keeping with my real character. I hope it
will not be thought that I am prosing if I take this opportunity of
saying that the laws peculiar to each of us are those which we are at
the least pains to discover and those which we are most prone to
neglect. We think we have done our duty when we have kept the
commandments common to all of us, but we may perhaps have disgracefully
neglected it.
Oh, how that afternoon with B. burnt itself into my memory for ever! I
was sitting on my little sofa with books piled round me.
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