all my ambitions."

"You are not the only one who has had to do that," he said sharply.
"Why make a fuss? Things arrange themselves, and eventually we adjust
ourselves to the new arrangement. A great deal of caring and grieving,
phase one; still more caring and grieving, phase two; less caring and
grieving, phase three; no further feeling whatsoever, phase four.
Mercifully I am at phase four. You are at phase one. Make a quick
journey over the stages."

He turned and left her, and she strolled along, thinking of his words,
wondering how long it would take her to arrive at his indifference.
She had always looked upon indifference as paralysis of the soul, and
paralysis meant death, nay, was worse than death. And here was this man,
who had obviously suffered both mentally and physically, telling her
that the only sensible course was to learn not to care. How could she
learn not to care? All her life long she had studied and worked and
cultivated herself in every direction in the hope of being able to take
a high place in literature, or, in any case, to do something in life
distinctly better than what other people did. When everything was coming
near to her grasp, when there seemed a fair chance of realizing her
ambitions, she had suddenly fallen ill, broken up so entirely in every
way, that those who knew her when she was well, could scarcely recognize
her now that she was ill. The doctors spoke of an overstrained nervous
system: the pestilence of these modern days; they spoke of rest, change
of work and scene, bracing air. She might regain her vitality; she might
not. Those who had played themselves out must pay the penalty. She was
thinking of her whole history, pitying herself profoundly, coming to
the conclusion, after true human fashion, that she was the worst-used
person on earth, and that no one but herself knew what disappointed