There she was, with her delight of life all changed into youngsters and
fat. There she was, heavy as a monument, and the devil in her divided
among her children--though Deolda had plenty of devil to divide.
My first thought was: "Here's the end of romance. To think that you once
were love, passion, and maybe even carried death in your hand--and when
I look at you now!"
Then the thought came to me, "After all, it is a greater romance that
she should have triumphed completely, that the weakness of remorse has
never set its fangs in her heart." She had seized the one loophole that
life had given her and had infused her relentless courage into another's
veins.
I was at the bottom of Deolda Costa's coming to live with my aunt
Josephine Kingsbury, for I had been what my mother called "peaked," and
was sent down to the seashore to visit her. And suddenly I, an inland
child, found myself in a world of romance whose very colors were
changed. I had lived in a world of swimming green with faint blue
distance; hills ringed us mildly; wide, green fields lapped up to our
houses; islands of shade trees dotted the fields.
My world of romance was blue and gray, with the savage dunes glittering
gold in the sun. Here life was intense. Danger lurked always under the
horizon.
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