What an egoist, how aloof she was! And yet, not in her words, perhaps, but in her voice, in her face, in her attitude, there were signs of a soft brooding spirit, of a sensibility unblunted and profound, playing over her thoughts and deeds, and investing her manner with an habitual gentleness.

The arguments and phrases of Mr.Clacton fell flat against such armor.
"You'll be married, and you'll have other things to think of," she said inconsequently, and with an accent of condescension.

She was not going to make Katharine understand in a second, as she would, all she herself had learnt at the cost of such pain.No.Katharine was to be happy; Katharine was to be ignorant; Mary was to keep this knowledge of the impersonal life for herself.

The thought of her morning's renunciation stung her conscience, and she tried to expand once more into that impersonal condition which was so lofty and so painless.

She must check this desire to be an individual again, whose wishes were in conflict with those of other people.