Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/354

Rh abnegation, impossible to her. And she despised herself because they were impossible; despised herself because to his generosity she had only responded with what at best was but a vulgar egotism; despised herself because she had been so weak that she had permitted his familiarities and his caresses unrebuked; despised herself for everything with that self scorn of a proud woman, which is far more intense and bitter than any scorn that she has ever dealt out upon others.

She had lived all her life on a height of unconscious, but no less absorbing, self-admiration. She had looked down on all the aims and objects and attainments and possessions of all other persons with a bland and superb vanity; she had been accustomed to regard herself as perfect, as others all united to tell her that she was; and her immunity from mean frailties and puerile emotions had given her a belief that she was lifted high above the passions and the follies of humankind; now, all of a sudden, she had dropped to the lowest depths of weakness and of selfishness—passion