Why did one's path lead always through mazes of uncertainty and disappointment instead of straight onward toward one's desire?
A passionate impulse seized her to fight for what she wanted, to grasp the fragile opportunity before it eluded her.
Yet she knew that fighting would not do any good.

She could do nothing while her happiness hung on a thread.

She could do nothing but fold her hands and wait, though her heart burned hot with the injustice of it, and she longed to speak aloud all the words that were rising to her tightly closed lips.
"Oh, don't you see--can't you see ?" she asked brokenly, baring her heart with a desperate impulse.

Her eyes were drawing him toward the future; and, in the deep stillness of her look, it seemed to him that she was putting forth all her power to charm; that her youth and bloom shed a sweetness that was like the fragrance of a flower.
For an instant every thought, every feeling, surrendered to her appeal.
Then his face changed as abruptly as if he had put a mask over his features; and glancing back over her shoulder, she saw that his mother and Margaret Blair were walking along the concrete pavement under the few old linden trees.

As they approached it seemed to the girl that Stephen turned slowly from a man of flesh and blood into a figure of granite.