word, none noticed the word; yet this word was her medical herb, her
illuminating lamp, the key of him (and, alas, but she thought it by
feeling her need of one), the advocate pleading in apology for her.
Egoist! She beheld him--unfortunate, self-designated man that he
was!--in his good qualities as well as bad under the implacable lamp,
and his good were drenched in his first person singular. His generosity
roared of I louder than the rest. Conceive him at the age of Dr.
Corney's hero: "Pray, save my wife for me. I shall positively have to
get another if I lose her, and one who may not love me half so well, or
understand the peculiarities of my character and appreciate my
attitudes." He was in his thirty-second year, therefore a young man,
strong and healthy, yet his garrulous return to his principal theme,
his emphasis on I and me, lent him the seeming of an old man spotted
with decaying youth.

"Beware of marrying an Egoist."

Would he help her to escape? The idea of the scene ensuing upon her
petition for release, and the being dragged round the walls of his
egoism, and having her head knocked against the corners, alarmed her
with sensations of sickness.

There was the example of Constantia. But that desperate young lady had
been assisted by a gallant, loving gentleman; she had met a Captain
Oxford.

Clara brooded on those two until they seemed heroic. She questioned
herself. Could she . . . ? were one to come? She shut her eyes in
languor, leaning the wrong way of her wishes, yet unable to say No.