Mrs. Balfame by Gertrude Atherton

Alys borrowed a horse and cart from her cousin Mr. Phipps, Chief of Police in Elsinore, who kept a livery stable, and took the shortest cut into the country. She wanted to think out many things and think them out alone. She drove rapidly until she came within sight and sound of the sea. Then she let the lines lie loosely on the back of her old friend Colonel Roosevelt, who had been named in his fiery colt-hood, but in these days, save under compulsion, was as slow as American law. He ambled along, and Alys, in the booming stillness and the fresh salt air, felt the humid waves roll out of her brain. She saw clearly, but she was aghast and depressed.

Presented by nature with an odd and arresting exterior, in color and feature as well as in subtlety of expression, sketched and flattered by such artists as she met, she had, ever since old enough for introspection, striven for uncommon personal developments that should justify her obverse and set her still farther apart from mere woman. If not born with an intense aversion from the commonplace (and it is safe to say that no one is), she had conceived it early enough to train a rarely plastic mind to striking viewpoints, while a natural tact saved her from isolation. If she had been as original as she thought herself, she would have antagonised many people.