Poor Olive was
stricken as she had never been before, but the extremity of her danger
gave her a desperate energy. The only comfort in her situation was that
this time Verena had confessed her peril, had thrown herself into her
hands. "I like him--I can't help it--I do like him. I don't want to
marry him, I don't want to embrace his ideas, which are unspeakably
false and horrible; but I like him better than any gentleman I have
seen." So much as this the girl announced to her friend as soon as the
conversation of which I have just given a sketch was resumed, as it was
very soon, you may be sure, and very often, in the course of the next
few days. That was her way of saying that a great crisis had arrived in
her life, and the statement needed very little amplification to stand as
a shy avowal that she too had succumbed to the universal passion. Olive
had had her suspicions, her terrors, before; but she perceived now how
idle and foolish they had been, and that this was a different affair
from any of the "phases" of which she had hitherto anxiously watched the
development. As I say, she felt it to be a considerable mercy that
Verena's attitude was frank, for it gave her something to take hold of;
she could no longer be put off with sophistries about receiving visits
from handsome and unscrupulous young men for the sake of the
opportunities it gave one to convert them. She took hold, accordingly,
with passion, with fury; after the shock of Ransom's arrival had passed
away she determined that he should not find her chilled into dumb
submission.
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