And instead of trampling
underfoot the folk that she despised, her one thought was how best she
might avoid or deceive them.
While concealing her grief from others, Lida felt herself attracted to
Novikoff as a flower to the sunlight. The suggestion that he was to
save her seemed base, almost criminal. It galled her to think that she
should depend upon his affection and forgiveness, yet stronger far than
pride was the passionate longing to live.
Her attitude towards human stupidity was one of fear rather than
disdain; she could not look Novikoff in the face, but trembled before
him, like a slave. Her plight was pitiable as that of a helpless bird
whose wings have been clipped, and that can never fly again.
At times, when her suffering seemed intolerable, she thought with naive
astonishment of her brother. She knew that, for him, nothing was
sacred, that he looked at her, his sister, with the eyes of a male, and
that he was selfish and immoral. Nevertheless he was the only man in
whose presence she felt herself absolutely free, and with whom she
could openly discuss the most intimate secrets of her life.
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