She too felt the responsibility of his life, as of hers.

Could she really do this thing--not only begin it, but carry it through without repentance, and without recoil?
She made herself look steadily at this English spectacle with its luxurious complexity, its concentration within a small space of all the delicacies of sense and soul, its command of a rich European tradition, in which art and literature are living streams springing from fathomless depths of life.

Could she, whose every fibre responded so perfectly to the stimulus of this environment, who up till now--but for moments of revolt--had been so happy and at ease in it, could she wrench herself from it--put it behind her--and adapt herself to quite another, without, so to speak, losing herself, and half her value, whatever that might be, as a human being?
As we know, she had already asked herself the question in some fashion, under the shadow of the Rockies.

But to handle it in London was a more pressing and poignant affair.

It was partly the characteristic question of the modern woman, jealous, as women have never been before in the world's history, on behalf of her own individuality.