Notwithstanding that she has the eye of the
doctor and the psychologist, Elsie Lindtner, the heroine, has also the
nerves and sensibility of a woman. Her daring powers of analysis do not
save her from moments of mysterious terror, such as came over her, for
no particular reason, on a foggy evening; nor yet from the sense of
being utterly happy--equally without reason--on a certain autumn night;
nor from feeling an intense sensuous pleasure in letting the little
pebbles on the beach slide between her fingers. In a word, all the
harshness of her judgments and reflections do not save her from the
dreadful distress of growing old....
In vain she withdraws from the society of her fellow-creatures, in the
hope that old age will no longer have terrors for her when there is no
one at hand to watch her physical decay; the redoubtable phantom still
haunts her in her retreat; watches her, brushes past her, and mocks her
sincere effort to abandon all coquetry and cease "to count as a woman.
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