nd she knew he would not have noticed it if she had done the
boldest sort of things to encourage him, to let him know that she liked
him; he was so simple, in his straightforward egotism, beside her
sinuous unselfishness.

She began to think how she was always contriving little sacrifices to
his vanity, his modesty, and he was always accepting them with a serene
ignorance of the fact that they were offered; and at this she strayed
off on a little by-way in her revery, and thought how it was his mind,
always, that charmed her; it was no ignoble fondness she felt; no poor,
grovelling pleasure in his good looks, though she had always seen that
in a refined sort he had a great deal of manly beauty. But she had held
her soul aloof from all that, and could truly say that what she adored
in him was the beauty of his talent, which he seemed no more conscious
of than of his dreamy eyes, the scornful sweetness of his mouth, the
purity of his forehead, his sensitive nostrils, his pretty, ineffective
little chin. She had studied her own looks with reference to his, and
was glad to own them in no wise comparable, though she knew she was more
graceful, and she could not help seeing that she was a little taller;
she kept this fact from herself as much as possible. Her features were
not regular, like his, but she could perceive that they had charm in
their irregularity; she could only wonder whether he thought that line
going under her chin, and suggesting a future double chin in the little
fold it made, was so very ugly. He seemed never to have thought of her
looks, and if he cared for her, it was for some other reason, just as
she cared for him. She did not know what the reason could be, but
perhaps it was her sympathy, her appreciation, her cheerfulness; Louise
believed that she had at least these small merits.

The thought of them brought her back to the play again, and to the
love-business, and she wondered how she could have failed to tell him,
when they were talking about what should bring the lovers together,
after their prefatory quarrel, that simply willing it would do it. She
knew that after she began to wish Maxwell back, she was in such a frenzy
that she believed her volition brought him back; and now she really
believed that you could hypnotize fate in some such way, and that your
longings would fulfil themselves if they were intense enough. If he
could not use that idea in this play, then he ought to use it in some
othe