She saw, too, and for the first time, how lonely she was in the world,
and a deep and burning longing for real love and sympathy took
possession of her. She had friends, of course, as young girls have, of
much her own age and not unlike her in their inexperienced ideas of
life. But there was not one of them at Sorrento, nor had she met any one
among the many acquaintances she had made, to whom she would care to
turn. Even her own intimate associates from childhood, who were far away
in Sicily, or travelling elsewhere, would not have satisfied her. They
could not have understood her, their answers to her questions would have
seemed foolish and worthless, and they would have tormented her with
questions of their own, inopportune, importunate, tiresome. She herself
did not know that what she craved was the love or the friendship of one
strong, honest man.
It was strange to find out suddenly how wide was the breach which
separated her from her mother, with whom she had lived so happily
throughout her childhood and early youth, with whom she had agreed--or
rather, who had agreed with her--on the whole almost without a
discussion.
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