came daily, and as it was her wish that new themes, new flights of converse,
should delight him and show her exhaustless, to preserve her ascendancy, she
welcomed him without consulting the world. He was witness of Mr. Hepburn's
presentation of a costly China vase, to repair the breach in her array of
ornaments, and excuse a visit. Judging by the absence of any blow within, he saw
not a sign of coquettry. Some such visit had been anticipated by the prescient
woman, so there was no reddening. She brought about an exchange of sentences
between him and her furious admirer, sparing either of them a glimpse of which
was the sacrifice to the other, amusing them both. Dacier could allow Mr.
Hepburn to outsit him; and he left them, proud of his absolute confidence in
her.
    She was mistaken in imagining that her social vivacity, mixed with
comradeship of the active intellect, was the charm which kept Mr. Percy Dacier
temperate when he well knew her to distinguish him above her courtiers. Her
powers of dazzling kept him tame; they did not stamp her mark on him. He was one
of the order of highly polished men, ignorant of women, who are impressed for
long terms by temporary flashes, that hold them bound until a fresh impression
comes, to confirm or obliterate the preceding. Affairs of the world he could
treat competently; he had a head for high politics and the management of men;
the feminine half of the world was a confusion and a vexation to his
intelligence, characterless; and one woman at last appearing decipherable, he
fancied it must be owing to her possession of character, a thing prized the more
in women because of his latent doubt of its existence. Character, that was the
mark he aimed at; that moved him to homage as neither sparkling wit nor
incomparable beauty, nor the unusual combination, did. To be distinguished by a
woman of character (beauty and wit for jewellery), was his minor ambition in
life, and if Fortune now gratified it, he owned to the flattery. It really
seemed by every test that she had the quality. Since the day when he beheld her
by the bedside of his dead uncle, and that one on the French sea-sands, and
again at Copsley, ghostly white out of her wrestle with death, bleeding holy
sweat of brow for her friend, the print of her features had been on him as an
index of depth of character, imposing respect and admiration - a sentiment
imperilled by her consent to fly with him. Her subsequent reserve until they met