with trembling by the weak females of a household as the unscrupulous
male - capable, if he has not free way at home, of going and doing worse
elsewhere? Hence I am forced to doubt whether even without her potent charm and
peculiar filial position Gwendolen might not still have played the queen in
exile, if only she had kept her inborn energy of egoistic desire, and her power
of inspiring fear as to what she might say or do. However, she had the charm,
and those who feared her were also fond of her; the fear and the fondness being
perhaps both heightened by what may be called the iridescence of her character -
the play of various, nay, contrary tendencies. For Macbeth's rhetoric about the
impossibility of being many opposite things in the same moment, referred to the
clumsy necessities of action and not to the subtler possibilities of feeling. We
cannot speak a loyal word and be meanly silent, we cannot kill and not kill in
the same moment; but a moment is room wide enough for the loyal and mean desire,
for the outlash of a murderous thought and the sharp backward stroke of
repentance.
 

                                   Chapter V

 »Her wit
 Values itself so highly, that to her
 All matter else seems weak.«
                                                         Much Ado about Nothing.
 
Gwendolen's reception in the neighbourhood fulfilled her uncle's expectations.
From Brackenshaw Castle to the Firs at Wanchester, where Mr. Quallon the banker
kept a generous house, she was welcomed with manifest admiration, and even those
ladies who did not quite like her, felt a comfort in having a new, striking girl
to invite; for hostesses who entertain much must make up their parties as
ministers make up their cabinets, on grounds other than personal liking. Then,
in order to have Gwendolen as a guest, it was not necessary to ask any one who
was disagreeable, for Mrs. Davilow always made a quiet, picturesque figure as a
chaperon, and Mr. Gascoigne was everywhere in request for his own sake.
    Among the houses where Gwendolen was not quite liked, and yet invited, was
Quetcham Hall. One of her first invitations was to a large dinner-party there,
which made a sort of general introduction for her to the society of the
neighbourhood; for in a select party of thirty and of well-composed proportions
as to age, few visitable families could be entirely left out. No youthful figure
there was comparable to Gwendolen's as she passed through the long suite of
rooms adorned with light and flowers, and, visible at first as a slim figure
floating along in white drapery, approached through