Title: Capricious Caroline
Description: [...]Ocean! No, no! If the St. John did not make her port here, she has been telegraphed there. The strongest wind cannot stagger a Spirit; it is a Spirit's breath. A just man's purpose cannot be split on any Grampus or material rock, but itself will split rocks till it succeeds. The verses addressed to Columbus, dying, may, with slight alterations, be applied to the passengers of the St. John: -[...].
[...]that he was glad to be away from London again even for a little while; glad to dissociate his thoughts from that element of his life that belonged to the world in which Camilla Lancing lived. Not that he expected to be able to put her out of his thoughts altogether, for even in the dull, prosaic, unlovely surroundings of the factory, remembrance of this woman haunted him in so tangible a way that at times he could almost have imagined she was close beside him. And on this occasion he carried with him new matter for thought where Camilla was concerned. A new element had crept into his heart. If he shut his eyes he could see with painful distinctness Camilla floating round that large room held in the arms of another man. He knew perfectly well that this other man was no more to her than the floor on which she danced, but that did not affect the situation as far as he was concerned. He winced and turned hot as he sat alone in the railway carriage whirling away from town, just as he had winced and grown hot the other night, when, like some graceful white leaf borne on a wayward wind, she had lightly skimmed past him, brushing him with her soft, clinging skirts. Her laughing, petulant reproach when he had refused to dance because he could not dance had left a little wound. She had made him feel clumsy; suddenly she had seemed to recede from him. It was the first time that he had ever felt awkward, and at the mere suggestion that he could look foolish in the eyes of this woman Rupert Haverford discovered that he was very like other men, some of whom perhaps he had judged hardly, and some contemptuously. He had no definite intention in his mind as to how he should act. Indeed, it seemed to him that the future was not held in restraint by his hand or his power, and he laughed once to himself a little bitterly, as he recalled how he had gone round and round this subject of late, thinking entirely of his own feelings, and of how far the bewitchment that this[...]
Subjects: Fiction
People: Caroline