she was in the common youthful case of being a much
better judge of other people’s affairs than
of her own. At the fellow-student who adored
some Henry or Augustus, not from the drivelling sentimentality
which the world calls love, but because this particular
Henry or Augustus was a phoenix to whom the laws that
govern the relations of ordinary lads and lasses did
not apply, Agatha laughed in her sleeve. The
more she saw of this weakness in her fellows, the more
satisfied she was that, being forewarned, she was
also forearmed against an attack of it on herself,
much as if a doctor were to conclude that he could
not catch smallpox because he had seen many cases
of it; or as if a master mariner, knowing that many
ships are wrecked in the British channel, should venture
there without a pilot, thinking that he knew its perils
too well to run any risk of them. Yet, as the
doctor might hold such an opinion if he believed himself
to be constituted differently from ordinary men; or
the shipmaster adopt such a course under the impression
that his vessel was a star, Agatha found false security
in the subjective difference between her fellows seen
from without and herself known from within. When,
for instance, she fell in love with Mr. Jefferson
Smilash (a step upon which she resolved the day after
the storm), her imagination invested the pleasing
emotion with a sacredness which, to her, set it far
apart and distinct from the frivolous fancies of which
Henry and Augustus had been the subject, and she the
confidant.
“I can look at him quite coolly and dispassionately,”
she said to herself. “Though his face has
a strange influence that must, I know, correspond
to some unexplained power within me, yet it is not
a perfect face. I have seen many men who are,
strictly speaking, far handsomer. If the light
that never was on sea or land is in his eyes, yet they
are not pretty eyes—not half so clear as
mine. Though he wears his common clothes with
a nameless grace that betrays his true breeding at
every step, yet he is not tall, dark, and melancholy,
as my ideal hero would be if I were as great a fool
as girls of my age usually are. If I am in love,
I have sense enough not to let my love blind my judgment.”
She did not tell anyone of her new interest in life.
Strongest in that student community, she had used
her power with good-nature enough to win the popularity
of a school leader, and occasionally with unscrupulousness
enough to secure the privileges of a school bully.
Popularity and privilege, however, only satisfied her
when she was in the mood for them. Girls, like
men, want to be petted, pitied, and made much of,
when they are diffident, in low spirits, or in unrequited
love. These are services which the weak cannot
render to the strong and which the strong will not
render to the weak, except when there is also a difference
of sex. Agatha knew by experience that though
a weak woman cannot understand why her stronger sister