But, all through, the other thing really mastered her: the fixed idea
that Jim must be saved. As it deepened, the other life that she had lived
became like the sports in which we shared when children, full of
vivacious memory, shining with impulse and the stir of life, but not to
be repeated--days and deeds outgrown. So the light of one idea shone in
her face. Yet she was intensely human too; and if her eyes had not been
set on the greater glory, the other thought might have vulgarised her
mind, made her end and goal sordid--the descent of a nature rather than
its ascension.
When Nancy came, the lesser idea, the stake, took on a new importance,
for now it seemed to her that it was her duty to secure for the child its
rightful heritage. Then Jim, too, appeared in a new light, as one who
could never fulfil himself unless working through the natural channels of
his birth, inheritance, and upbringing. Jim, drunken and unreliable, with
broken will and fighting to find himself--the waste places were for him,
until he was the master of his will and emotions. Once however, secure in
ability to control himself, with cleansed brain and purpose defined, the
widest field would still be too narrow for his talents--and the five,
yes, the fifty millions of his father must be his.
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