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 XXXIII

THE HIGHWAY OF THE MANY

Success had spread out both hands to Northcote, but the emotion she had aroused in him was not one of gratitude. He had spent many days of suffering, of mental darkness, during the years of his obscurity, but none had engulfed him in such humiliation as this upon which he had entered now. He had tasted coldness and hunger; he had known the stings of rage and despair; but these sensations appeared salutary in comparison with a hopelessness such as this.

How could he cherish an illusion in the matter, he who knew so much? He had made his choice deliberately under the spur of need; he had foreseen its enormous penalties; he had foreseen the degradation that was implied in the honors and emoluments that would accrue from its exercise. Yet, now these things had come upon him, he smote his breast and lifted up his voice in woe. Less than a week ago, in the freedom of his penury, in the license of his failure, he had had the power to spurn these lures. Yet in almost the next breath he had yielded to the call of his ambition; and in his first walk upon the perilous path he had elected to choose, he had shown an ease and lightness of motion that were audacious, astonishing.

What was there to deplore? His triumph had been so patent as to win the applause of the world.