He
had had the happiest days of his whole life, George felt--he knew it
now they were just gone: he went and took up the flowers and put his
face to them, smelt them--perhaps kissed them. As he put them down, he
rubbed his rough hand across his eyes with a bitter word and laugh. He
would have given his whole life and soul to win that prize which
Arthur rejected. Did she want fame? he would have won it for her:
devotion?--a great heart full of pent-up tenderness and manly love
and gentleness was there for her, if she might take it. But it might
not be. Fate had ruled otherwise. "Even if I could, she would not have
me," George thought. "What has an ugly, rough old fellow like me, to
make any woman like him? I'm getting old, and I've made no mark in
life. I've neither good looks, nor youth, nor money, nor reputation. A
man must be able to do something besides stare at her and offer on his
knees his uncouth devotion, to make a woman like him. What can I do?
Lots of young fellows have passed me in the race--what they call the
prizes of life didn't seem to me worth the trouble of the struggle.
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