Myra Willard, wise in her experience, and in her more than mother love for
Sibyl, saw and recognized that which the girl herself did not yet
understand. Satisfied as to the character of Aaron King, as it had been
tested in those days of unhampered companionship; and seeing, as well, his
growing love for the girl, the woman had been content not to meddle with
that which she conceived to be the work of God. And why not the work of
God? Should the development, the blossoming, and the fruiting of human
lives, that the race may flower and fruit, be held less a work of divinity
than the plants that mature and blossom and reproduce themselves in their
children?
The character of Mrs. Taine represented those forces in life that are, in
every way, antagonistic to the forces that make the character of a Sibyl
Andres possible. In a spirit of wanton, selfish cruelty, that was born of
her worldly environment and training, "The Age" had twisted and distorted
the very virtues of "Nature" into something as hideously ugly and vile as
her own thoughts. The woman--product of gross materialism and
sensuality--had caught in her licentious hands God's human flower and had
crushed its beauty with deliberate purpose.
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