Her short beat of wings was over. She had joined herself with Victor's
leap for a change, thirsting for the scenery of the white peaks in
heaven, to enjoy through his enjoyment, if her own capacity was dead:
and she had found it revive, up to some recovery of her old songful
readiness for invocations of pleasure. Escape and beauty beckoned ahead;
behind were the chains. These two letters of the one fact plucked her
back. The chained body bore the fluttering spirit: or it was the spirit
in bonds, that dragged the body. Both were abashed before the image of
her girl. Out of the riddle of her strange Nesta, one thing was clear:
she did not love the man: and Nataly tasted gladness in that, from the
cup of poisonous regrets at the thought. Her girl's heart would not
be broken. But if he so strongly loved her, as to hold to this
engagement?... It might then be worse. She dropped a plumb-line into the
young man, sounding him by what she knew of him and judged. She had to
revert to Nesta's charm, for the assurance of his anchored attachment.