and she could not help thinking what a fine fellow
he would be if he were not so bad. She might have liked him very much,
then. But as it was, it was impossible that she should ever not hate
him. Then she smiled to herself, as she thought how surprised he would
be if he could guess what she thought of him.

But there was no probability of that, for she felt that she had no right
to know what she knew, and so she treated him always, as she thought,
with the same even, indifferent civility. But not seldom she knew that
she was wickedly wishing that he might really fall in love with her and
find out that men could break their hearts as well as women. She should
like to fight with him, with his own weapons, for the glory of all her
sex, and make him thoroughly miserable for his sins. It could not be
wrong to wish that, after what she had seen, but it would be very wrong
to try and make him fall in love, just with that intention. That would
be almost as bad as what he had done; not quite so bad, of course,
because it would serve him right, but yet a deed which she might be
ashamed to remember.

She herself felt perfectly safe. She was neither sentimental nor
susceptible, for if she had been one or the other she must by this time
have had some "experience," as she vaguely called it. But she had not.
She had never even liked any man so much as she liked this man whom she
hated. This was not a contradiction of facts, which, as Euclid teaches
us, is impossible. She liked him for what she saw, and she hated him for
what she knew.

One day, when Mrs. Bowring was present, the conversation turned upon a
recent novel in which the hero, after making love to a woman, found that
he had made a mistake, and promptly made love to her sister, whom he
married in the end.

"I despise that sort of man!" cried Clare, rather vehemently, and
flashing her eyes upon Johnstone.

For a moment she had thought that she could surprise him, that he would
look away, or change colour, or in some way betray his most guilty
conscience. But he did not seem in the least disturbed, and met her
glance as calmly as ever.

"Do you?" he asked with an indifferent laugh. "Why? The fellow was
honest, at all events. He found that he didn't love the one to whom he
was engaged, and that he did love the other. So he set things straight
before it was too late, and married the right one. He was a very
sensible man, and it must have taken courage to be so honest about