of his loving an idea of you that is not you. You think, 'He
will wake up and find his mistake;' or you think, 'That kiss was not
intended for me; not for me as I am.' Those are tortures!"

Her discipline had transformed her, when she could utter such sentiments
as these!

Feeling her shudder, and not knowing how imagination forestalls
experience in passionate blood, Georgiana said, "You speak like one who
has undergone them. But now at least you have thrown off the mask. You
love him still, this man! And with as little strength of will! Do you
not see impiety in the comparison you have made?"

"Oh! what I see is, that I wish I could say to him, 'Look on me, for I
need not be ashamed--I am like Miss Ford!'"

The young lady's cheeks took fire, and the clear path of speech becoming
confused in her head she said, "Miss Ford?"

"Georgiana," said Emilia, and feeling that her friend's cold manner had
melted; "Georgey! my beloved! my darling in Italy, where will we go! I
envy no woman but you who have seen my dear ones fight. You and I, and
Merthyr! Nothing but Austrian shot shall part us."

"And so we make up a pretty dream!" interjected Georgiana. "The Austrian
shot, I think, will be fired by one who is now in the Austrian service,
or who will soon be."

"Wilfrid?" Emilia called out. "No; that is what I am going to stop. Why
did I not tell you so at first? But I never know what I say or do when
I am with you, and everything seems chance. I want to see him to prevent
him from doing that. I can."

"Why should you?" asked Georgiana; and one to whom the faces of the two
had been displayed at that moment would have pronounced them a hostile
couple.

"Why should I prevent him?" Emilia doled out the question slowly, and
gave herself no further thought of replying to it.

Apparently Georgiana understood the significance of this odd silence:
she was perhaps touched by it. She said, "You feel that you have a power
over him. You wish to exercise it. Never mind wherefore. If you do--if
you try, and succeed--if, by the aid of this love presupposed to exist,
you win him to what you require of him--do you honestly think the love
is then immediately to be dropped?"

Emilia meditated. She caught up her voice hastily. "I think so. Yes. I
hope so. I mean it to be."

"With a noble lover, Emilia. Not with a selfish one. In showing him the
belief you have in your power over him, you betray that he has power
over you. And it is to