eapon and make as many captives as
they can. I do not wonder! My sense of shame at my natural weakness and
the arrogance of men would urge me to make hundreds captive, if that is
being a coquette. I should not have compassion for those lofty birds,
the hawks. To see them with their wings clipped would amuse me. Is
there any other way of punishing them?"

"Consider what you lose in punishing them."

"I consider what they gain if we do not."

Laetitia supposed she was listening to discursive observations upon the
inequality in the relations of the sexes. A suspicion of a drift to a
closer meaning had been lulled, and the colour flooded her swiftly when
Clara said: "Here is the difference I see; I see it; I am certain of
it: women who are called coquettes make their conquests not of the best
of men; but men who are Egoists have good women for their victims;
women on whose devoted constancy they feed; they drink it like blood. I
am sure I am not taking the merely feminine view. They punish
themselves too by passing over the one suitable to them, who could
really give them what they crave to have, and they go where they . . ."
Clara stopped. "I have not your power to express ideas," she said.

"Miss Middleton, you have a dreadful power," said Laetitia.

Clara smiled affectionately. "I am not aware of any. Whose cottage is
this?"

"My father's. Will you not come in? into the garden?"

Clara took note of ivied windows and roses in the porch. She thanked
Laetitia and said: "I will call for you in an hour."

"Are you walking on the road alone?" said Laetitia, incredulously, with
an eye to Sir Willoughby's dismay.

"I put my trust in the high-road," Clara replied, and turned away, but
turned back to Laetitia and offered her face to be kissed.

The "dreadful power" of this young lady had fervently impressed
Laetitia, and in kissing her she marvelled at her gentleness and
girlishness.

Clara walked on, unconscious of her possession of power of any kind.

CHAPTER XVII

THE PORCELAIN VASE

During the term of Clara's walk with Laetitia, Sir Willoughby's
shrunken self-esteem, like a garment hung to the fire after exposure to
tempestuous weather, recovered some of the sleekness of its velvet pile
in the society of Mrs. Mountstuart Jenkinson, who represented to him
the world he feared and tried to keep sunny for himself by all the arts
he could exercise. She expected him to be the gay Sir Willoughby, and
her look be