The
very thought made her feel puny and contemptible. If she resisted to the
very uttermost of her strength, yet would she be crushed in the end, and
that end would be more horribly painful than she dared to contemplate.
All her childhood it had been the same. She had been conquered ere she
had passed the threshold of rebellion. She had never been permitted to
exercise a will of her own, and the discovery that she possessed one had
been something of a surprise to Dinah.
It was partly this discovery that made her long so passionately for
freedom. She wanted to grow, to develop, to get beyond the stultifying
influence of that unvarying despotism. She longed to get away from the
perpetual dread of consequences that so haunted her. She wanted to
breathe her own atmosphere, live her own life, be herself.
"I believe I could do lots of things if I only had the chance," she
murmured to herself; and then she was suddenly plunged into the memory of
another occasion when she had received summary and austere punishment for
omitting scales from her practising. But then no one ever liked doing
what they must, and she had never had any real taste for music; or if she
had had, it had vanished long since under the uninspiring goad of
compulsion.
All her morning depression came back while these bitter meditations
racked her brain. Oh, if only--if only--her father had chosen a lady for
his wife! It was disloyal, she knew, to indulge such a thought, but her
mood was black and her soul was in revolt.
Pages:
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107