Sharlee, too, retired from her painful interview with West with a sense
of irreparable loss. Her idol of so many years had, at a word, toppled
off into the dust, and not all the king's horses could ever get him back
again. It was like a death to her, and in most ways worse than a death.
She lay awake a long time that night, thinking of the two men who, for
she could not say how long, had equally shared first place in her
thoughts. And gradually she read them both anew by the blaze lit by one
small incident.
She could not believe that West was deliberately false; she was certain
that he was not deliberately false. But she saw now, as by a sudden
searchlight flung upon him, that her one-time paladin had a fatal
weakness. He could not be honest with himself. He could believe anything
that he wanted to believe. He could hypnotize himself at will by the
enchanting music of his own imaginings. He had pretty graces and he told
himself they were large, fine abilities; dim emotions and he thought
they were ideals; vague gropings of ambition, and when he had waved the
hands of his fancy over them, presto, they had become great dominating
purposes.
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