But what had I ever to think about ?" "And no doubt," commented Marlow, "her life had been a mere life of sensations--the response to which can neither be foolish nor wise.

It can only be temperamental; and I believe that she was of a generally happy disposition, a child of the average kind.

Even when she was asked violently whether she imagined that there was anything in her, apart from her money, to induce any intelligent person to take any sort of interest in her existence, she only caught her breath in one dry sob and said nothing, made no other sound, made no movement.

When she was viciously assured that she was in heart, mind, manner and appearance, an utterly common and insipid creature, she remained still, without indignation, without anger.

She stood, a frail and passive vessel into which the other went on pouring all the accumulated dislike for all her pupils, her scorn of all her employers (the ducal one included), the accumulated resentment, the infinite hatred of all these unrelieved years of--I won't say hypocrisy.