gravity of mature
age there mingled a very perceptible strain of melancholy. You felt it
in his laugh, which was seldom hearty; it made his sprightliness in
social hours more self-conscious than it might have been. Beatrice had
always felt towards him a very real humility, even when the goading of
her unrequited love drove her into a show of scornful opposition.
Herself conscious of but average intelligence, and without studious
inclinations, she endowed him with acquisitions as vast as they were
vague to her discernment; she knew that it would always lie beyond her
power to be his intellectual companion. Therefore she desired to be
before everything womanly in his eyes, to make the note of pure
sentiment predominate in their private relations to each other. She had
but won him by her artistic faculty; she could not depend upon that to
retain and deepen his affection. Her constant apprehension was lest
familiarity should diminish her charm in his eyes. Wilfrid was no less
critical than he had ever been; she suspected that he required much of
her. Did he seek more than she would eventually be able to give? Was she
exhausting the resources of her personal charm? Such thoughts as these
made curious alternations in her manner towards him; one day she would
endeavour to support a reserve which should surpass his own, another she
lost herself in bursts of emotion. The very care which she bestowed upon
her personal appearance was a result of her anxiety on this point; in
the last resort she knew herself to be beautiful, and to her beauty he
was anything but insensible. Yet such an influence was wretchedly
insufficient; she must have his uttermost love, and never yet had she
attained full assurance of possessing it.

Little did Wilfrid suspect the extent to which her thoughts were
occupied with that faint, far-off figure of Emily Hood. It was her
despair that she had known Emily so slightly; she would have desired to
study to the depths the woman who had possessed such a secret of power.
In personal charm Emily could not compare with her; and yet--the
distinction struck her hard--that was perhaps only true if personal
charm merely meant charm of person, for she herself had experienced
something of the strange impressiveness which men--men of
imagination--submitted to in Emily's presence. Where did it lie, this
magic? It was indefinite, indefinable; perhaps a tone of the voice
represented it, perhaps a smile--which meant, of co