imself to be constituted differently from
ordinary men; or the shipmaster adopt such a course under the impression
that his vessel was a star, Agatha found false security in the
subjective difference between her fellows seen from without and herself
known from within. When, for instance, she fell in love with Mr.
Jefferson Smilash (a step upon which she resolved the day after the
storm), her imagination invested the pleasing emotion with a sacredness
which, to her, set it far apart and distinct from the frivolous fancies
of which Henry and Augustus had been the subject, and she the confidant.

"I can look at him quite coolly and dispassionately," she said to
herself. "Though his face has a strange influence that must, I know,
correspond to some unexplained power within me, yet it is not a perfect
face. I have seen many men who are, strictly speaking, far handsomer. If
the light that never was on sea or land is in his eyes, yet they are
not pretty eyes--not half so clear as mine. Though he wears his common
clothes with a nameless grace that betrays his true breeding at every
step, yet he is not tall, dark, and melancholy, as my ideal hero would
be if I were as great a fool as girls of my age usually are. If I am in
love, I have sense enough not to let my love blind my judgment."

She did not tell anyone of her new interest in life. Strongest in that
student community, she had used her power with good-nature enough to
win the popularity of a school leader, and occasionally with
unscrupulousness enough to secure the privileges of a school bully.
Popularity and privilege, however, only satisfied her when she was in
the mood for them. Girls, like men, want to be petted, pitied, and made
much of, when they are diffident, in low spirits, or in unrequited love.
These are services which the weak cannot render to the strong and which
the strong will not render to the weak, except when there is also a
difference of sex. Agatha knew by experience that though a weak woman
cannot understand why her stronger sister should wish to lean upon her,
she may triumph in the fact without understanding it, and give chaff
instead of consolation. Agatha wanted to be understood and not to be
chaffed. Finding herself unable to satisfy both these conditions, she
resolved to do without sympathy and to hold her tongue. She had often
had to do so before, and she was helped on this occasion by a sense of
the ridiculous appearance her passion might wear