Violet Jacob > Flemington

136
FLEMINGTON
Madam Flemington had made no concession and
had put no term to his banishment, and though
he could not believe that such a state of things
could last, and that one Sudden impulse of hers
could hurl him out of her life for ever, she, who
had lived for him, had told him that she would
"do without him.” Then, as he assured himself
of this, from that dim recess wherein a latent
truth hides until some outside light flashes upon
its lair, came the realization that she had not
lived for him alone. She had lived for him that
she might make him into the instrument she
desired, a weapon fashioned to her hand, where¬
with she might return blow for blow.
All at once the thought made him spiritually
sick, and the glory and desirableness of life
seemed to fade. He could not see through its
dark places, dark where all had been sunshine.
He had been a boy yesterday, a man only by
virtue of his astounding courage and resource,
but he was awakening from boyhood, and man¬
hood was hard. His education had begun, and
he could not value the education of pain—the
soundest, the most costly one there is—any more
than any of us do whilst it lasts. He did not
think, any more than any of us think, that perhaps
when we come to lie on our death-beds we shall
know that, of all the privileges of the life behind
us, the greatest has been the privilege of having
suffered and fought.
All he knew was that his heart ached, that he
had disappointed and estranged the person he