He only longed for the time when he
could take Etta freely into his confidence and engage her interest in
the object of his ambition--namely, to make the huge Osterno estate into
that lump of leaven which might in time leaven the whole of the empire.
That a man is capable of sustaining two absorbing interests at once is a
matter of every-day illustration. Are we not surrounded by men who do
their work well in life, and love their wives well at home, without
allowing the one to interfere with the other? That women are capable of
the same seems exceedingly probable. But we are a race of sheep who run
after each other, guided for the moment by a catchword which will not
bear investigation, or an erroneous deduction set in alliterative verse
which clings to the mind and sways it. Thus we all think that woman's
whole existence is, and is only capable of, love, because a poet, in the
trickiness of his trade, once said so.
Now, Paul held a different opinion. He thought that Etta could manage to
love him well, as she said she did, and yet take an interest in that
which was in reality the object of his life. He intended to take the
earliest opportunity of telling her all about the work he was
endeavoring to carry out at Osterno, and the knowledge that he was
withholding something from her was a constant burden to an upright and
honest nature.
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