ble. Still
the glow was there in her breast often and often, and would be
momentarily directed towards one and another; but the brightness of it
only showed the defects in each; and so she remained in love with love
alone, and the power of passion in her, thwarted, was transmuted into
mental energy.

But Beth learnt a good deal from her young men that summer--learnt her
own power, for one thing, when she found that she could twist the
whole lot of them round her little finger if she chose. The thing
about them that interested her most, however, was their point of view.
She found one trait common to all of them when they talked to her, and
that was a certain assumption of superiority which impressed her very
much at first, so that she was prepared to accept their opinions as
confidently as they gave them; and they always had one ready to give
on no matter what subject. Beth, perceiving that this superiority was
not innate, tried to discover how it was acquired that she might
cultivate it. Gathering from their attitude towards her ignorance that
this superiority rested somehow on a knowledge of the Latin grammar,
she hunted up an old one of her brother's and opened it with awe, so
much seemed to depend on it. Verbs and declensions came easily enough
to her, however. The construction of the language was puzzling at the
outset; but, with a little help, she soon discovered that even in that
there was nothing occult. Any industrious, persevering person could
learn a language, she decided; and then she made more observations.
She discovered that, in the estimation of men, feminine attributes are
all inferior to masculine attributes. Any evidence of reasoning
capacity in a woman they held to be abnormal, and they denied that
women were ever logical. They had to allow that women's intuition was
often accurate, but it was inferior, nevertheless, they maintained, to
man's uncertain reason; and such qualities as were undeniable they
managed to discount, as, for instance, in the matter of endurance. If
women were long enduring, they said, it was not because their
fortitude was greater, but because they were less sensitive to
suffering, and so, in point of fact, suffered less than men would
under the circumstances.

This persistent endeavour to exalt themselves by lowering women struck
Beth as mean, and made her thoughtful. She began by respecting their
masculine minds as much as they did themselves; but then came a doubt
if they