THE STEADFAST HEART
ligibility he sprang in a night to giant’s stature. Rainbow capitulated; its walls fell amid rejoicings, and its inhabitants gave Angus a triumph.
All this came to batter upon the ramparts of Lydia’s will during the next few passing days. It was as though all Rainbow had chosen to agree against her judgment of him; as if Rainbow had become his champion to fight for him before the court of her heart. Rainbow conspired together, it seemed, to lift Angus high above the mire of his origin, to adulate him, to set him upon a pinnacle…. And now Lydia strove not only against her heart but against reason—against a thing more difficult to conquer: her stubbornness.
One phase of his conduct stood prominent and glowing before her eyes. She cared little for that side of the matter which had won Rainbow, but his magnanimity, what she saw as magnanimity, moved and shook her. Angus had tried to save Judge Crane, his ancient enemy; had not sought in the moment of his power to retaliate for years of bitterness and cruelty…. He had tried to save the Judge, and that he had not succeeded was no fault of his…. She endowed him with a greatness of soul, when the thing he had possessed was nothing more nor less than a sense of duty—not to Crane but to his employer. Perhaps this had been fine—it was fine. But Lydia raised it to a sublimity…. She glori-
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