d not
been renewing her entreaties to leave Patterne. No, the miserable
coquette had now her pastime, and was content to stay. Deceit was in
the air: he heard the sound of the shuttle of deceit without seeing it;
but, on the whole, mindful of what he had dreaded during the hours of
her absence, he was rather flattered, witheringly flattered. What was
it that he had dreaded? Nothing less than news of her running away.
Indeed a silly fancy, a lover's fancy! yet it had led him so far as to
suspect, after parting with De Craye in the rain, that his friend and
his bride were in collusion, and that he should not see them again. He
had actually shouted on the rainy road the theatric call "Fooled!" one
of the stage-cries which are cries of nature! particularly the cry of
nature with men who have driven other men to the cry.

Constantia Durham had taught him to believe women capable of explosions
of treason at half a minute's notice. And strangely, to prove that
women are all of a pack, she had worn exactly the same placidity of
countenance just before she fled, as Clara yesterday and to-day; no
nervousness, no flushes, no twitches of the brows, but smoothness, ease
of manner--an elegant sisterliness, one might almost say: as if the
creature had found a midway and borderline to walk on between cruelty
and kindness, and between repulsion and attraction; so that up to the
verge of her breath she did forcefully attract, repelling at one foot's
length with her armour of chill serenity. Not with any disdain, with no
passion: such a line as she herself pursued she indicated to him on a
neighbouring parallel. The passion in her was like a place of waves
evaporated to a crust of salt. Clara's resemblance to Constantia in
this instance was ominous. For him whose tragic privilege it had been
to fold each of them in his arms, and weigh on their eyelids, and see
the dissolving mist-deeps in their eyes, it was horrible. Once more the
comparison overcame him. Constantia he could condemn for revealing too
much to his manly sight: she had met him almost half-way: well, that
was complimentary and sanguine: but her frankness was a baldness often
rendering it doubtful which of the two, lady or gentleman, was the
object of the chase--an extreme perplexity to his manly soul. Now
Clara's inner spirit was shyer, shy as a doe down those rose-tinged
abysses; she allured both the lover and the hunter; forests of
heavenliness were in her flitting eyes. He