The Human Interest by Violet Hunt

Mrs. Elles never put the spectacles on again. They had made no difference -- except to herself. And further intimacy with Rivers convinced her that any such artificial safeguards against flirtation were quite unnecessary.

She realized his want of sympathy and humanity, his elaborate attitude of standing aside from the problems of life in favour of a closer contemplation of those of Nature. It was Nature he loved, and Nature only, with his full heart. The human interest was a purely secondary consideration with him. Not "in many mortal forms" did he seek "the shadow of that idol. " He was Alastor and she was the Lady. She must remember that. Alastor could doubtless have done quite well without the Lady. She represented the ever-restless Spirit of Humanity which Alastor had come into the wilderness to avoid. And, for his sake, for the sake of her valued privileges, she must learn to keep it in abeyance and suppress it as far as she could. She must love Nature too. It was difficult, for though, in her quality of romanticist, she had always talked a good deal about it. Nature, to her, was merely a background for people, just as flowers were an adornment for her bodice or her parlour.