scandal; he heard none. He wanted
stirring, cheering; in her house he had it. He 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 senti