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During the twenty-two unenlivening and, latterly, busy years of her life Esme Lester had never been in love, had not known the excitement which many girls of her age enjoy of possessing a lover. She was not a sentimental young woman, and she had not had much time in which to indulge in these distractions. The woman who earns her livelihood has her mind occupied with graver matters generally. Love, if it succeed in penetrating her preoccupation, takes her usually unaware and remains sometimes unsuspected for quite an appreciable while.
It was possibly not love which in the early stages of their acquaintance aroused her interest in Hallam. Mainly her feeling for him was a mixture of womanly compassion and of repugnance so intense that at times it shouldered pity into the background, and left her chilled with disgust for his weakness and bitterly ashamed for him.