He
had spoken to Verena of their little excursion as his last opportunity,
let her know that he regarded it not as the beginning of a more intimate
acquaintance but as the end even of such relations as already existed
between them. He gave her up, for reasons best known to himself; if he
wanted to frighten Olive he judged that he had frightened her enough:
his Southern chivalry suggested to him perhaps that he ought to let her
off before he had worried her to death. Doubtless, too, he had perceived
how vain it was to hope to make Verena abjure a faith so solidly
founded; and though he admired her enough to wish to possess her on his
own terms, he shrank from the mortification which the future would have
in keeping for him--that of finding that, after six months of courting
and in spite of all her sympathy, her desire to do what people expected
of her, she despised his opinions as much as the first day. Olive
Chancellor was able to a certain extent to believe what she wished to
believe, and that was one reason why she had twisted Verena's flight
from New York, just after she let her friend see how much she should
like to drink deeper of the cup, into a warrant for living in a fool's
paradise. If she had been less afraid, she would have read things more
clearly; she would have seen that we don't run away from people unless
we fear them and that we don't fear them unless we know that we are
unarmed. Verena feared Basil Ransom now (though this time she declined
to run); but now she had taken up her weapons, she had told Olive she
was exposed, she had asked _her_ to be her defence.
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