o
conception like a London dawn over Nesta; and how, honourably, decently,
positively, to sever herself from it, grew to be an ill-visaged problem.
She glanced in soul at Dartrey Fenellan for help; she had her wild
thoughts. Having once called him Dartrey, the virginal barrier to
thoughts was broken; and but for love of her father, for love and pity
of her mother, she would have ventured the step to make the man who had
her whole being in charge accept or reject her. Nothing else appeared in
prospect. Her father and mother were urgently one to favour Dudley; and
the sensitive gentleman presented himself to receive his wound and to
depart with it. But always he returned. At last, as if under tuition,
he refrained from provoking a wound; he stood there to win her upon any
terms; and he was a handsome figure, acknowledged by the damsel to
be increasing in good looks as more and more his pretensions became
distasteful to her. The slight cast of sourness on his lower features
had almost vanished, his nature seemed to have enlarged. He complimented
her for her 'generous benevolence,' vaguely, yet with evident
sincereness; he admitted, that the modern world is 'attempting
difficulties with at least commendable intentions'; and that the
position of women demands improvement, consideration for them also.
He said feelingly: 'They have to bear extraordinary burdens!' There he
stopped.

The sharp intelligence fronting him understood, that this compassionate
ejaculation was the point where she, too, must cry halt. He had,
however--still under tuition, perhaps--withdrawn his voice from the
pursuit of her; and so she in gratitude silenced her critical mind
beneath a smooth conceit of her having led him two steps to a broader
tolerance. Susceptible as she was, she did not influence him without
being affected herself in other things than her vanity: his prudishness
affected her. Only when her heart flamed did she disdain that real haven
of refuge, with its visionary mount of superiority, offered by Society
to its effect, in the habit of ignoring the sins it fosters under
cloak;--not less than did the naked barbaric time, and far more to the
vitiation of the soul. He fancied he was moulding her; therefore winning
her. It followed, that he had the lover's desire for assurance of
exclusive possession; and reflecting, that he had greatly pardoned,
he grew exacting. He mentioned his objections to some of Mr. Dartrey
Fenellan's ideas.

Nes