All the eloquence, the arguments, the pleadings he should have
commanded earlier in the evening hurried belated to their posts.
After the manner of the young and imaginative when in the white fire
of emotion, he began dramatising scenes between Carroll and himself.
He saw them plainly. He heard the sound of his own voice as he
rehearsed the arguments which should break her resolution. A
woman's duty to her own soul; her obligation toward the man she
could make or mar by her love; her self-respect; the necessity of a
break some time; the advantage of having the crisis over with now
rather than later; a belief in the ultimate good even to Mrs. Bishop
of throwing that lady more on her own resources; and so forth and so
on down a list of arguments obvious enough or trivial enough, but
all inspired by the soul of fervour, all ennobled by the spirit of
truth that lies back of the major premise that a woman should cleave
to a man, forsaking all others. Orde sat back in his chair, his
eyes vacant, his pen all but falling from his hand. He did not
finish the letter to his mother. After a while he went upstairs to
his own room.
The fever of the argument coursed through his veins all that long
night.
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