She fancied once that she detected the agreeable stirring of the brood of jealousy, and found it neither in her heart nor in her mind, but in the book of wishes, well known to the young where they write matter which may sometimes be independent of both those volcanic albums.  Jealousy would have been a relief to her, a dear devil’s aid.  She studied the complexion of jealousy to delude herself with the sense of the spirit being in her, and all the while she laughed, as at a vile theatre whereof the imperfection of the stage machinery rather than the performance is the wretched source of amusement.

Vernon had deeply depressed her.  She was hunted by the figure 4.  Four happy instead of two miserable.  He had said it, involving her among the four; and so it must be, she considered, and she must be as happy as she could; for not only was he incapable of perceiving her state, he was unable to imagine other circumstances to surround her.  How, to be just to him, were they imaginable by him or any one?

Her horrible isolation of secrecy in a world amiable in unsuspectingness frightened her.  To fling away her secret, to conform, to be unrebellious, uncritical, submissive, became an impatient desire; and the task did not appear so difficult since Miss Dale’s arrival.  Endearments had been rare, more formal; living bodily untroubled and unashamed, and, as she phrased it, having no one to care for her, she turned insensibly in the direction where she was due; she slightly imitated Miss Dale’s colloquial responsiveness.  To tell truth, she felt vivacious in a moderate way with Willoughby after seeing him with Miss Dale.  Liberty wore the aspect of a towering prison-wall; the desperate undertaking of climbing one side and dropping to the other was more than she, unaided, could resolve on; consequently, as no one cared for her, a worthless creature might as well cease dreaming and stipulating for the fulfilment of her dreams; she might as well yield to her fate; nay, make the best of it.

Sir Willoughby was flattered and satisfied.  Clara’s adopted vivacity proved his thorough knowledge of feminine nature; nor did her feebleness in sustaining it displease him.  A steady look of hers had of late perplexed the man, and he was comforted by signs of her inefficiency where he excelled.  The effort and the failure were both of good omen.

But she could not continue the effort.  He had overweighted her too much for the mimicry of a sentiment to harden and have an apparently natural place among her impulses; and now an idea came to her that he might, it might be hoped, possibly see in Miss Dale, by present contrast, the mate he sought; by contrast with an unanswering creature like herself, he might perhaps realize in Miss Dale’s greater accomplishments and her devotion to him the merit of suitability; he might be induced to do her justice.  Dim as the loop-hole was, Clara fixed her mind on it till it gathered light.  And as a prelude to action,