Mary Heaton Vorse

“ I can't tell you how completely she convinced me that she had in her the peculiar talent from which her ambition sprang. She wanted to be near the heart of life and see the great people of the world and shape her own place in the world of affairs. She wanted power and responsibility. She had no young cynicism about love, but in her own case she counted on her ambition outweighing any upflashing of instinct. ”

“ Outside the battle was Haldane, unsuspecting, awaiting Vivian's word. I looked at her to see if there was a hint of this hardness and cynicism in her beauty, and there was n't, not an atom, not a hint. She was extraordinarily lovely, a nature as fine and flexible as a tempered sword, and there was even a hint of austerity in her expression. Very perfect she was, and I understood better Mrs. Nevers's statement that there were n't many possible marriages for a girl like Vivian, Ordinary men don't want goddesses as wives. ”

“ It was the inner soul of that selfless fanatical ambition that I listened to that pays and pays and pays in terms of itself, and makes it necessary for every one near him to pay—makes his own flesh and blood go hungry and perhaps die so that the work he is doing may go on. ”

“ Why won't she tell Haldane at once that she 'll marry him? You see, Vivian 's placed in rather a peculiar position; there are n't many people she—she can marry after what 's happened." Thus her mother indicated that having almost been the wife of a royal prince there were not many proper alliances that such a woman could make. I would n't allow her this vagueness. Remember that I was a very old friend of Marion Nevers and that she irritated me as profoundly as she held my affection for her. So I said brutally:
"You mean there are n't many marriages that Vivian can make without an anticlimax." ”

“ McAndrew asked. "He looks very fortunate, I think."
"He can't keep that look long; no one 's strong enough to keep the look that he has long, and it must hurt to lose it."
"I don't know," McAndrew answered, "for I 've never had such innocence to lose." Then he smiled at Vivian, and his smile said, "And neither have you."
The boy was searching for some one among the dancers with absorbed earnestness, as though his seeking was of weightiest importance. Then his eyes fell on Vivian, and he advanced toward her quietly. ”

“ Indeed, beside the power McAndrew might hope to have,—the almost limitless power of money,—Haldane's position seemed as circumscribed as an ornamental garden.
"The wives of the great business men have had very little to do in the great games their husbands are playing. I don't think Vivian 's interested in money." ”

“ Haldane had proposed marriage, and Vivian had asked for time, and the time she wanted was not to make up her mind concerning him, as he trustingly thought, but concerning McAndrew. She had her one bird well in the hand while she quietly stalked the other in the bush.
"She 'll never marry if she goes on this way," Mrs. Nevers said irritably. "Every one, literally every one, said she might have married the prince if she had only had patience. ”

“ As she paused again I plumbed the inner meaning of the remark that had apparently won him Vivian. The passion that was his consuming desire for his work had released him long enough to find his perfect mate, and even now, insatiable of his devotion, called to him to return.
"I don't know if you understand; I 'm not sure I do. It 's a question between two realities; they can't both be true. He 's made the things that I thought valuable to me cease to exist. They don't exist for me any more than a chrysalis exists for a moth. ”

“ Nevers's is that Vivian fell in love with Grayson's youth, like any school-girl, and McAndrew thinks something like the same thing.
"Women can't starve their primitive impulses without paying," is how he put it. "You can't count on them. But that young man will go far. ”

“ She turned slowly toward me and looked at me with somber eyes, very speculating eyes, as though she were searching me through and through.
"Yes, I know what I want," she said at last. I waited for her to go on, but she did n't speak. She was stronger than I, for I spoke first:
"What is it?" I asked her.
"Power," she answered. She seemed then very earnest and very young.
"Power?" I echoed with middle-aged stupidity. "The high places of the earth?" ”

“ The talk seemed so important to him that Vivian's curiosity was aroused, and she left McAndrew and me together. Much later I came on McAndrew again. We smoked outside in silence for a while. Then McAndrew said reflectively:
"I 've placed young Grayson. A visionary young scientist, very talented if only he were practical, but he 's forever fussing with some windy theory or other about a new kind of ray." Thus McAndrew, whose wide-flung imaginative vision had made him what he was.
Mrs. Nevers bustled up to us. ”