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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Altar of the Dead by Henry James: was her acceptance of the loss that gave him the full measure of
her preference for the thought of Acton Hague over any other
thought whatever. He had humour enough to laugh rather grimly when
he said to himself: "Why the deuce does she like him so much more
than she likes me?" - the reasons being really so conceivable. But
even his faculty of analysis left the irritation standing, and this
irritation proved perhaps the greatest misfortune that had ever
overtaken him. There had been nothing yet that made him so much
want to give up. He had of course by this time well reached the
age of renouncement; but it had not hitherto been vivid to him that
it was time to give up everything.
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