off from her comprehension, and seemed to speak of bloodless
matters. "And yet he is her lover," she thought. "When they meet they
talk across a river, and he knows she is going to another man, and
does not gripe her wrist and drag her away!" The sense that she had no
kinship with such flesh shut her mouth faster than Wilfrid's injunctions
(which were ordinarily conveyed in too subtle a manner for her to feel
their meaning enough to find them binding). Cornelia, for a mask to
her emotions, gave Emilia a gentle, albeit high-worded lecture on the
artist's duty toward Art, quoting favourite passages from Mr. Barrett's
favourite Art-critic. And her fashion of dropping her voice as she
declaimed the more dictatorial sentences (to imply, one might guess,
by a show of personal humility that she would have you to know her
preaching was vicarious; that she stood humbly in the pulpit, and was
but a vessel for the delivery of the burden of the oracle), all this was
beautiful to him who could see it. I cannot think it was wholesome
for him; nor that Cornelia was unaware of a naughty wish to glitter
temporarily in the eyes of the man who made her feel humble. The sorcery
she sent through his blood communicated itself to hers. When she had
done, Emilia, convincedly vanquished by big words, said, "I cannot
talk," and turned heavily from them without bestowing a smile upon
either.

Cornelia believed that the girl would turn back as abruptly as she
had retreated; and it was not until Emilia was out of sight that she
remembered the impropriety of being alone with Mr. Barrett. The Pitfall
of Sentiment yawned visible, but this lady's strength had been too
little tried for her to lack absolute faith in it. So, out of deep
silences, the two leapt to speech and immediately subsided to the depths
again: as on a sultry summer's day fishes flash their tails in the
sunlight and leave a solitary circle widening on the water.

Then Cornelia knew what was coming. In set phrase, and as one who
performs a duty frigidly pleasant, he congratulated her on her rumored
union. One hand was in his buttoned coat; the other hung elegantly
loose: not a feature betrayed emotion. He might have spoken it in a
ballroom. To Cornelia, who exulted in self-compression, after the Roman
method, it was more dangerous than a tremulous tone.

"You know me too well to say this, Mr. Barrett."

The words would come. She preserved her steadfast air, when they had
escaped,