another person would have fixed upon as one to work me this unmitigated
evil. I do not know her, and I believe I do not care to know her, and I
am thirsting for the hour to come when I shall study her. Is not this to
have the poison of a bite in one's blood? The wrath of Venus is not a
fable. I was a hard reader and I despised the sex in my youth, before
the family estates fell to me; since when I have playfully admired the
sex; I have dallied with a passion, and not read at all, save for
diversion: her anger is not a fable. You may interpret many a mythic
tale by the facts which lie in your own blood. My emotions have lain
altogether dormant in sentimental attachment. I have, I suppose, boasted
of, Python slain, and Cupid has touched me up with an arrow. I trust to
my own skill rather than to his mercy for avoiding a second from his
quiver. I will understand this girl if I have to submit to a close
intimacy with her for six months. There is no doubt of the elegance of
her movements. Charles might as well take his tour, and let us see him
again next year. Yes, her movements are (or will be) gracious. In a
year's time she will have acquired the fuller tones and poetry of
womanliness. Perhaps then, too, her smile will linger instead of
flashing. I have known infinitely lovelier women than she. One I have
known! but let her be. Louise and I have long since said adieu.




CHAPTER IV

SHE

Behold me installed in Dayton Manor House, and brought here for the
express purpose (so Charles has written me word) of my being studied,