One might have
thought her, to meet a situation at any point like her own, not badly
equipped. She had all the arguments--which is like saying all the
arms--and the most accurate understanding; but the only practical
outcome of these things had been an intimate object-lesson in the small
value of the intelligence, that flavoured her state with cynicism and
made it more piquant. She did not altogether scorn her own intelligence
at the result, because it had always admitted the existence of
dominating facts that belonged to life and not to reason; it was only
the absurd unexpectedness of coming across one herself. One might think
round such a fact and talk round it--there were less exquisite
satisfactions--but it was not to be cowed or abated, and in the end the
things one said were only words.
Out there in the grassy spaces she let her thoughts flow through her
veins, with her blood, warm and free. The primitive things she saw
helped her to a fulness of life; the south wind brought her profound
sweet presciences. A coolie woman, carrying a basket on her head,
stopped and looked at her with full, glistening eyes; they smiled at
each other and passed on. She found herself upon a narrow path, worn
smooth by other barefooted coolie-folk; it made in its devious way
toward the rich mists where the sun had gone down and Hilda followed it,
breasting the glow and the colour and wide, flat expanse, as if in the
India of it there breathed something exquisitely sensuous and
satisfying.
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