Sometimes she felt tempted to take the cheap thrills
of purely physical existence with Louis as she realized more and more
that, though his schooled and trained brain was a better machine than
hers, his soul was a weak plant requiring constant cossetting and
feeding while his body was the unreasoning, struggling home of
appetites. She had the torturing hopefulness that comes from alternating
failure and success in a dear project; she was getting just a little
cynical about him; her clear brain saw that she was his mother, his
nurse and, perhaps, his mistress. He loved her. She knew that quite
well. But he loved her as so many Christians love Christ--"because He
died for us." His love was unadulterated selfishness even though it was
the terribly pathetic selfishness of a weak thing seeking prop and
salvation. She faced quite starkly the fact that her love was a love of
giving always, receiving never; also she faced the fact that she must
kill every weakness in herself, for, by letting him see her hardness,
she gave him something to imitate. Hunger of soul, the black depression
that comes to a Kelt like a breath from the grave, weariness of body
must all be borne gallantly lest he be "raked up." Once or twice, when
Louis had slipped and failed and was fighting himself back again, she
felt that she was getting bankrupt.
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