Nothing, in especial, once you
were face to face with it, could show for more consummately DONE.
When once it came out it came out, was there with a splendour that
made you ashamed; and there hadn't been, save in the bottomless
vulgarity of the age, with every one tasteless and tainted, every
sense stopped, the smallest reason why it should have been
overlooked. It was great, yet so simple, was simple, yet so great,
and the final knowledge of it was an experience quite apart. He
intimated that the charm of such an experience, the desire to drain
it, in its freshness, to the last drop, was what kept him there
close to the source. Gwendolen, frankly radiant as she tossed me
these fragments, showed the elation of a prospect more assured than
my own. That brought me back to the question of her marriage,
prompted me to ask if what she meant by what she had just surprised
me with was that she was under an engagement.
"Of course I am!" she answered. "Didn't you know it?" She seemed
astonished, but I was still more so, for Corvick had told me the
exact contrary. I didn't mention this, however; I only reminded
her how little I had been on that score in her confidence, or even
in Corvick's, and that, moreover I wasn't in ignorance of her
mother's interdict. At bottom I was troubled by the disparity of
the two accounts; but after a little I felt Corvick's to be the one
I least doubted.
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