"Loved me?--Well, Armand, I thought at one time that he did,
or I should not have married him. I daresay," she added, speaking
very rapidly, as if she were about to lay down a heavy burden, which
had oppressed her for months, "I daresay that even you thought-as
everybody else did--that I married Sir Percy because of his
wealth--but I assure you, dear, that it was not so. He seemed to
worship me with a curious intensity of concentrated passion, which
went straight to my heart. I had never loved any one before, as you
know, and I was four-and-twenty then--so I naturally thought that it
was not in my nature to love. But it has always seemed to me that it
MUST be HEAVENLY to be loved blindly, passionately, wholly. . .
worshipped, in fact--and the very fact that Percy was slow and stupid
was an attraction for me, as I thought he would love me all the more.
A clever man would naturally have other interests, an ambitious man
other hopes. . . . I thought that a fool would worship, and think of
nothing else. And I was ready to respond, Armand; I would have
allowed myself to be worshipped, and given infinite tenderness in
return.
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