DIALOGUE ROUND THE SUBJECT OF A PORTRAIT, WITH SOME INDICATIONS OF THE
TASK FOR DIANA

An enamoured Egeria who is not a princess in her worldly state nor a
goddess by origin has to play one of those parts which strain the woman's
faculties past naturalness. She must never expose her feelings to her
lover; she must make her counsel weighty--otherwise she is little his
nymph of the pure wells, and what she soon may be, the world will say.
She has also, most imperatively, to dazzle him without the betrayal of
artifice, where simple spontaneousness is beyond conjuring. But feelings
that are constrained becloud the judgement besides arresting the fine jet
of delivery wherewith the mastered lover is taught through his ears to
think himself prompted, and submit to be controlled, by a creature super-
feminine. She must make her counsel so weighty in poignant praises as to
repress impulses that would rouse her own; and her betraying
impulsiveness was a subject of reflection to Diana after she had given
Percy Dacier, metaphorically, the key of her house. Only as true Egeria
could she receive him. She was therefore grateful, she thanked and
venerated this noblest of lovers for his not pressing to the word of
love, and so strengthening her to point his mind, freshen his moral
energies and inspirit him. His chivalrous acceptance of the conditions
of their renewed intimacy was a radiant knightliness to Diana, elevating
her with a living image for worship:--he so near once to being the
absolute lord of her destinies! How to reward him, was her sole
dangerous thought. She prayed and strove that she might give him of her
best, to practically help him; and she had reason to suppose she could do
it, from the visible effect of her phrases. He glistened in repeating
them; he had fallen into the habit; before witnesses too; in the presence
of Miss Paynham, who had taken earnestly to the art of painting, and
obtained her dear Mrs. Warwick's promise of a few sittings for the sketch