as a woman well could be, yet his attitude towards her
had no character of intolerance; he half wished that he could form a closer
acquaintance with her. At present, the thought of calm conversation with such a
woman made a soothing contrast to the riot excited in him by Cecily. Did she
read his mind? For one thing, it was not impossible that the Spences had spoken
freely in her presence of himself and his odd relations to the girl; there was
no doubting how they regarded him. Possibly he was a frequent subject of
discussion between Eleanor and her cousin. Mature women could talk with each
other freely of these things.
    On the other hand, whatever Mrs. Lessingham might have in her mind, she
certainly would not expose it in dialogue with her niece. Cecily was in an
unusual position for a girl of her age; she had, he believed, no intimate
friend; at all events, she had none who also knew him. Girls, to be sure, had
their own way of talking over delicate points, just as married women had theirs,
and with intimates of the ordinary kind Cecily must have come by now to consider
her guardian as a male creature of flesh and blood. What did it mean, that she
did not?
    A question difficult of debate, involving much that the mind is wont to slur
over in natural scruple. Mallard was no slave to the imbecile convention which
supposes a young girl sexless in her understanding; he could not, in conformity
with the school of hypocritic idealism, regard Cecily as a child of woman's
growth. No. She had the fruits of a modern education; she had a lucid brain; of
late she had mingled and conversed with a variety of men and women, most of them
anything but crassly conventional. It was this very aspect of her training that
had caused him so much doubt. And he knew by this time what his doubt
principally meant; in a measure, it came of native conscientiousness, of
prejudice which testified to his origin; but, more than that, it signified
simple jealousy. Secretly, he did not like her outlook upon the world to be so
unrestrained; he would have preferred her to view life as a simpler matter.
Partly for this reason did her letters so disturb him. No; it would have been an
insult to imagine her with the moral sensibilities of a child of twelve.
    Was she intellectual at the expense of her emotional being? Was she guarded
by nature against these disturbances? Somewhat ridiculous to ask that, and then
look up at her face effulgent with