imitive kind she estimated herself not
by her own measure, but by the measure of a man's love for her. Now
that men admired her she felt that she was taking her place as a unit
of importance. Her sense of achievement in this advent of the desiring
male was not alone pleased vanity, it went back through the ages to the
time when woman won her food and clothing, her right to exist, through
the power of her sex, when she whose attraction was strongest had the
best corner by the fire, the choicest titbit from the hunt, and the
strongest man to fight off rivals and keep her for himself.

Her perceptions, never before exercised on these subjects, were
singularly keen. Neither of the young men had spoken a word of love to
her, yet she intuitively knew that they were both under her spell. The
young girl so stupid at her books, who could never learn arithmetic and
found history a bore, had a deeper intelligence in the reading of the
human heart than anyone of the party. More than the doctor who was a
man of education, more than David who thought so much and loved to
read, more than Leff who, if his brain was not sharp, might be supposed
to have accumulated some slight store of experience, more than Daddy
John who was old and had the hoar of worldly knowledge upon him.
Compared to her they were as novices to a nun who has made an excursion
into the world and taken a bite from the apple Eve threw away.

She had no especial liking for Leff. It amused her to torment him, to
look at him with an artless, inquiring stare when he was overwhelmed by
confusion and did not know what to say. When she felt that he had
endured sufficiently she would become merciful, drop her eyes, and end
what was to her an encounter that added a new zest to her sense of
growing power.

With David it was different. Here, too, she felt her mastery, but the
slave was of another fiber. He acknowledged her rule, but he was
neither clumsy nor dumb before her. She respected his intelligence and
felt a secret jealousy of it, as of a part of him which must always be
beyond her influence. His devotion was a very dear and gracious thing
and she was proud that he should care for her. Love had not awakened
in her, but sometimes when she was with him, her admiration softened to
a warm, invading gentleness, a sense of weakness glad of itself, happy
to acknowledge his greater strength. Had David's intuitions been as
true as hers he would have known when these