She came, however, of a powerful blood, and he was pressing her back on her resources: without the measurement or a thought of it, she did that which is the most ordinary and the least noticed of our daily acts in civilized intercourse, she subjected him to the trial of the elements composing him, by collision with what she felt of her own; and it was because she felt them strongly, aware of her feeling them, but unaware of any conflict, that the wrestle occurred.

She flung him, pitied him, and passed on along her path elsewhere.

This can be done when love is gone.

It is done more or less at any meeting of men and men; and men and women who love not are perpetually doing it, unconsciously or sensibly.

Even in their love, a time for the trial arrives among certain of them; and the leadership is assumed, and submission ensues, tacitly; nothing of the contention being spoken, perhaps, nothing definitely known.
In Carinthia's case, her revived enthusiasm for her brother drove to the penetration of the husband pleading to thwart its course.