of. What he suspected in Julia was that
her mind was less pleasing than her person; an ugly, a really blighting
idea, which as yet he had but half accepted. It was a case in which she
was entitled to the benefit of every doubt and oughtn't to be judged
without a complete trial. Nick meanwhile was afraid of the trial--this
was partly why he had been of late to see her so little--because he was
afraid of the sentence, afraid of anything that might work to lessen the
charm it was actually in the power of her beauty to shed. There were
people who thought her rude, and he hated rude women. If he should
fasten on that view, or rather if that view should fasten on him, what
could still please and what he admired in her would lose too much of its
sweetness. If it be thought odd that he had not yet been able to read
the character of a woman he had known since childhood the answer is that
this character had grown faster than Nick's observation. The growth was
constant, whereas the observation was but occasional, though it had
begun early. If he had attempted inwardly to phrase the matter, as he
probably had not, he might have pronounced the effect she produced upon
him too much a compulsion; not the coercion of design, of importunity,
nor the vulgar pressure of family expectation, a betrayed desire he
should like her enough to marry her, but a mixture of divers urgent
things; of the sense that she was imperious and generous--probably more
the former than the latter--and of a certain prevision of doom, the
influence of the idea that he should come to it, that he was
predestined.

This had made him shrink from knowing the worst about her; not the wish
to get used to it in time, but what was more characteristic of him, the
wish to interpose a temporary illusion. Illusions and realities and
hopes and fears, however, fell into confusion whenever he met her after
a separation. The separation, so far as seeing her alone or as
continuous talk was concerned, had now been tolerably long; had lasted
really ever since his failure to regain his seat. An impression had come
to him that she judged that failure rather stiffly, had thought, and had
somewhat sharply said, that he ought to have done better. This was a
part of her imperious way, and a part not _all_ to be overlooked on a
mere present basis. If he were to marry her he should come to an
understanding with her: he should give her his own measure as well as
take hers. But the understan