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. The practice of perfect hypocrisy is a relief in itself,
a secret triumph of the vilest sort, no doubt, but still a way of getting
even with the common morality from which some of us appear to suffer so
much. No! I will say the years, the passionate, bitter years, of
restraint, the iron, admirably mannered restraint at every moment, in a
never-failing perfect correctness of speech, glances, movements, smiles,
gestures, establishing for her a high reputation, an impressive record of
success in her sphere. It had been like living half strangled for years.

And all this torture for nothing, in the end! What looked at last like a
possible prize (oh, without illusions! but still a prize) broken in her
hands, fallen in the dust, the bitter dust, of disappointment, she
revelled in the miserable revenge--pretty safe too--only regretting the
unworthiness of the girlish figure which stood for so much she had longed