She did show him the other side, quite in a
matter-of-fact way. It was not that she was trying to break down his
faith. There was nothing sly nor crafty in her methods of improving his
views. But by informing him, she made him wiser, and, at the same time,
more distrustful of motives, more searching in his investigations of
methods. He began to doubt some of his earlier ideas of what a public
man should be. He felt that his views were broadening. That was a
comfortable way of excusing certain surrenderings to her ideas.
The more he drew from her the more he was drawn to her.
It was not the love that comes with a rush of the emotions and sweeps a
man away.
Through the intellect, through his hunger for information and wider
views, she was making herself indispensable to his welfare and his
ambitions.
And yet Madeleine Presson was not trying to make this young man of the
north country fall in love with her. Her interest in him was first of
all based upon his winning earnestness and the elements of success that
she divined in him, were they properly cultivated.
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