He loved to know it, of course. Yet, while it answered to all his own
theories that the person should be so much less to her than the idea the
person lived for, he couldn't but feel at times, with a rueful sense of
unworthiness, that this rare capacity in her might apply in most unwelcome
fashion to his own case. In Jack, the deep wells of feeling and emotion
were barred and bolted over by a whole complicated system of reticences;
by a careful sense of responsibility, not only toward others, but toward
himself; by a disciplined self-control that was a second nature. But, he
could see it well enough, if such, deep wells there were in Imogen, they,
as yet, were in no need of barring and bolting. Her eyes could show a quiet
acceptance of homage, a placid conviction of power, a tender sympathy, but
the depth and trouble of emotion was not yet in them. He often suspected
that he was nearer to her when he talked to her of causes than when he
ventured, now and then, to talk about his feelings. There was always the
uncomfortable surmise that the man who could offer a more equipped faculty
for the adventure of the soul, might altogether outdistance him with
Imogen. By any emotion, any appeal or passion that he might show, she would
remain, so his intuition at moments told him, quite unbiased; while she
weighed simply worth against worth, and weight--in the sense of strength of
soul--against weight. And it was this intuition that made self-control and
reticence easier than they might otherwise have been. His theories might
assure him that such integrity of purpose was magnificent; his manly
common-sense told him that in a wife one wanted to be sure of the taint of
personal preference; so that, while he knew that he would never need to
weigh Imogen's worth against anybody else's, he watched and waited until
some unawakened capacity in her should be able happily to respond to the
more human aspects of life. Meanwhile the steamer had softly glided into
the dock and the two young people at last descried upon the crowded decks
the tall, familiar figure of Eddy Upton, like Imogen in his fairness,