It had been difficult for her to do what she had
done--to leave the island that morning. She had done it to discipline
her nature, as Passionists scourge themselves by night before the altar.
She had left Emile alone with Vere simply because she hated to do it.

The rising up of jealousy in her heart had frightened her. All night she
had lain awake feeling this new and terrible emanation from her soul,
conscious of this monster that lifted up its head and thrust it forth
out of the darkness.

But one merit she had. She was frank with herself. She named the monster
before she strove to fight it, to beat it back into the darkness from
which it was emerging.

She was jealous, doubly jealous. The monopolizing instinct of
strong-natured and deeply affectionate women was fiercely alive in her.
Always, no doubt, she had had it. Long ago, when first she was in Sicily
alone, she had dreamed of a love in the South--far away from the world.
When she married she had carried her Mercury to the exquisite isolation
of Monte Amato. And when that love was taken from her, and her child
came and was at the age of blossom, she had brought her child to this
isle, this hermitage of the sea. Emile, too, her one great friend, she
had never wished to share him. She had never cared much to meet him in
society. Her instinct was to have him to herself, to be with him alone
in unfrequented places. She was greedy or she was timid. Which was it?
Perhaps she lacked self-confidence, belief in her own attractive power.
Life in the world is a fight. Woman fight for their lovers, fight for
their friends, with other women: those many women who are born thieves,
who are never happy unless they are taking from their sisters the
possessions those sisters care for most. Hermione could never have
fought with other women for the love or the friendship of a man. Her
instinct, perhaps, was to carry her treasure out of all danger into the
wilderness.

Two treasures she had--Vere her child, Emile her friend. And now she
was jealous of each with the other. And the enormous difference in their
ages made her jealousy seem the more degrading. Nevertheless, she could
not feel that it was unnatural. By a mutual act they had excluded her
from their lives, had withdrawn from her their confidence while giving
it to each other. And their reason for doing this--she was sure of it
now--was her own failure to do something in the world of art.

She was jealous of Vere becau