The man she had seen besieged by passionate love, touched her cold
imagination with a hue of fire, as Winter dawn lies on a frosty field.
She almost conceived what this other, not sisterly, love might be; though
not as its victim, by any means. She became, as she had never before
been, spiritually tormented and restless. The thought framed itself that
Charlotte and Wilfrid were not, by any law of selection, to match. What
mattered it? Simply that it in some way seemed to increase the merits of
one of the two. The task, moreover, of avoiding to tease her brother was
made easier to her by flying to this new refuge of mysterious reflection.
At times she poured back the whole flood of her heart upon Merthyr, and
then in alarm at the host of little passions that grew cravingly alive in
her, she turned her thoughts to Wilfrid again; and so, till they turned
wittingly to him. That this host of little passions will invariably
surround a false great one, she learnt by degrees, by having to quell
them and rise out of them. She knew that now she occasionally forced her
passion for Merthyr; but what nothing could teach her was, that she did
so to eject another's image. On the contrary, her confession would have
been: "Voluntarily I dwell upon that other, that my love for Merthyr may
avoid excess." To such a state of clearness much self-questioning
brought her: but her blood was as yet unwarmed; and that is a condition
fostering self-deception as much as when it rages.

Madame Marini wrote to ask whether Emilia might receive the visits of a
Sir Purcell Barrett, whom they had met, and whom Emilia called her
friend; adding: "The other gentleman has called at our old lodgings three
times. The last time our landlady says, he wept. Is it an Englishman,
really?"

Merthyr laughed at this, remarking: "Charlotte is not so vigilant, after
all."