winced in general under any
suggestion of a breach of convention. But though her outward expression
being thus curbed had helped to suppress or minimise the opportunities of
inward thought, the idea had never left her. Now, when sex was,
consciously or unconsciously, a dominating factor in her thoughts, the
dormant idea woke to new life. She had held that if men and women were
equal the woman should have equal rights and opportunities as the man. It
had been, she believed, an absurd conventional rule that such a thing as
a proposal of marriage should be entirely the prerogative of man.

And then came to her, as it ever does to woman, opportunity. Opportunity,
the cruelest, most remorseless, most unsparing, subtlest foe that
womanhood has. Here was an opportunity for her to test her own theory;
to prove to herself, and others, that she was right. They--'they' being
the impersonal opponents of, or unbelievers in, her theory--would see
that a woman could propose as well as a man; and that the result would be
good.

It is a part of self-satisfaction, and perhaps not the least dangerous
part of it, that it has an increasing or multiplying power of its own.
The desire to do increases the power to do; and desire and power united
find new ways for the exercise of strength. Up to now Stephen's
inclination towards Leonard had been vague, nebulous; but now that theory
showed a way to its utilisation it forthwith began to become, first
definite, then concrete, then substantial. When once the idea had become
a possibility, the mere passing of time did the rest.

Her aunt saw--and misunderstood. The lesson of her own youth had not
been applied; not even of those long hours and days and weeks at which
she hinted when she had spoken of the tragedy of life which by inference
was her own tragedy: 'to love and to be helpless. To wait, and wait, and
wait, with your heart all aflame!'

Stephen recognised her aunt's concern for her health in time to protect
herself from the curiosity of her loving-kindness. Her youth and
readiness and adaptability, and that power of play-acting which we all
have within us and of which she had her share, stood to her. With but
little effort, based on a seeming acquiescence in her aunt's views, she
succeeded in convincing the old lady that her incipient feverish cold had
already reached its crisis and was passing away. But she had gained
certain knowledge in the playing of her little part. A