Should She Have Left Him? — page 220: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

214 SHOULD SHE HAVE LEFT HIM? denied her. She had learned that marriage, though sanctioned by the Church, was, unhallowed by love, a bondage, a mockery, a disgrace. She had read of love in novels, but, under the careful tuition of her mother, she had believed it to be, like the book, fic- tion. To love was a figment of poetic fancy; to marry, that was practical and meant a rich husband, a fine house, a life of luxurious elegance. She had been, like the fillies of the racing stables, carefully trained to run, and when brought on to the course did run in the direction she was headed, for that was what she had been taught to do. But after three weeks, as by a flash, she had appreciated the truth of the existence of love by the curious process of realizing its absence from her own alliance. In the moment of her awakening it was revealed to her what it all meant—this compulsory companionship with a man with whom she had no community of taste or interest, from which was absent that magical glamour of love, which covers defects, makes blemishes perfections, minimizes weaknesses, and maximizes excellencies. Her stunted mind and sen- sibilities had in a moment sprung into normal development by the irradiation of an idea. She had arrived at this condition of mind, when in Germany two things occurred which powerfully influenced her. They were stopping on the sea- coast and a yacht race was exciting her set. A _ grandee had made up a party for his yacht, of which Hilda was to be one, to witness the race. After there was to be an excursion to last three days—all Comicboolk<s C@ 3}