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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton: woman of the moment became a mere implement of the game. He owed
a great deal of delicate enjoyment to the cultivation of this
art. The perils from which it had been his refuge became naively
harmless: was it possible that he who now took his easy way along
the levels had once preferred to gasp on the raw heights of
emotion? Youth is a high-colored season; but he had the
satisfaction of feeling that he had entered earlier than most
into that chiar'oscuro of sensation where every half-tone has its
value.
As a promoter of this pleasure no one he had known was comparable
to Mrs. Vervain. He had taught a good many women not to betray
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