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
ambitions were; she was thinking of all this, and looking profoundly
miserable and martyr-like, when some one called her by her name. She
looked round and saw one of the English ladies belonging to the Kurhaus;
Bernardine had noticed her the previous night. She seemed in capital
spirits, and had three or four admirers waiting on her very words.
She was a tall, handsome woman, dressed in a superb fur-trimmed cloak,
a woman of splendid bearing and address. Bernardine looked a
contemptible little piece of humanity beside her. Some such impression
conveyed itself to the two men who were walking with Mrs. Reffold.
They looked at the one woman, and then at the other, and smiled at each
other, as men do smile on such occasions.
"I am going to speak to this little thing," Mrs. Reffold had said to
her two companions before they came near Bernardine. "I must find out
who she is, and where she comes from. And, fancy, she has come quite
alone. I have inquired. How hopelessly out of fashion she dresses.
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