Theodore Robinson Man with Scythe painting

contemplating a change in the pins and lines, a matter of inches, which outside the room, out of sight of the studious officers, may engulf past, present, and future in ruin or life. She was a symbol to herself then, lacking the life of both child and women; victory and defeat were changes of pin and line; she knew nothing of war. ‘If only one lived abroad,’ she thought, ‘where these things are arranged between parents and lawyers.’
To be married, soon and splendidly, was the aim of all her friends. If she looked further than the wedding, it was to see marriage as the beginning of individual existence; the skirmish where one gained one’s spurs, from which one set out on the true quests of life.
She outshone by far all the girls of her age, but she knew