With it he felt that he was powerless to resist its appeal.
"Why shouldn't I be good to you, Judy?" he repeated.
Tears overflowed her eyes at his words. Looking at her, he saw her not
as she was, but as he desired that she should be; and this desire, he
knew, sprang from his loneliness and from his need of giving sympathy
to some one outside of himself. The illusion that surrounded her bore
no resemblance to the illusion of love--yet it was akin to it in the
swiftness and the completeness with which it was born. If any one had
told him an hour ago that he was on the verge of marriage to Judy, he
would have scoffed at the idea--he who was the heartbroken lover of
Molly! Yet this sudden protecting pity was so strong that he found
himself playing with the thought of marriage, as one plays in lofty
moments with the idea of a not altogether unpleasant self-abnegation.
He did not love Judy, but he was conscious of an overwhelming desire to
make Judy happy--and like all desires which are conceived in a fog of
uncertainty, its ultimate form depended less upon himself than it did
upon the outward pressure of circumstances.
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