|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Touchstone by Edith Wharton: gradually learned that he stood for the venture on which Mrs.
Aubyn had irretrievably staked her all. It was not the kind of
figure he cared to cut. He had no fancy for leaving havoc in his
wake and would have preferred to sow a quick growth of oblivion in
the spaces wasted by his unconsidered inroads; but if he supplied
the seed it was clearly Mrs. Aubyn's business to see to the
raising of the crop. Her attitude seemed indeed to throw his own
reasonableness into distincter relief: so that they might have
stood for thrift and improvidence in an allegory of the
affections.
It was not that Mrs. Aubyn permitted herself to be a pensioner on
| 
