Before she was aware of it, she had begun to compare her affianced with Haldane, and she found that the one was like a goblet of sweet, rich wine, that was already nearly exhausted and cloying to her taste; the other was like a mountain spring, whose waters are pure, ever new, unfailing, prodigally abundant, inspiring yet slaking thirst.
But she soon saw whither such comparisons were leading her, and recognized her danger and her duty. She had plighted her faith to another, and he had given her no good reason to break that faith. Laura had a conscience, and she as resolutely set to work to shut out Haldane from her heart, as he, poor man, had tried to exclude her image, and from very much the same cause. But the heart is a wayward organ and is often at sword's-point with both will and conscience, and frequently, in spite of all that she could do, it would array Haldane on the one side and Beaumont on the other, and so it would eventually come to be, the man who loved her, versus the connoisseur who admired her, but whose absorbing passion for himself left no place for any other strong feeling.