This was doing injustice to Beatrice, and Wilfrid felt it; but it was thus he regarded her as in distinction from the woman who should have been his wife.  She typified his chosen career; that other path which had lain open to him, the path of intellectual endeavour, of idealism incompatible with loud talk, of a worship which knew no taint of time-serving, that for ever was represented by the image of the woman he had lost.  Her memory was encompassed with holiness.  He never heard the name she bore without a thrill of high emotion, the touch of exalted enthusiasm; ‘Emily’ was written in starlight.  Those aspects of her face which had answered to the purest moments of his rapturous youth were as present as if she had been his daily companion.  He needed no picture to recall her countenance; often he had longed for the skill of an artist, that he might portray that grave sweetness, that impassioned faith, to be his soul’s altar-piece.  Lost, lost! and, with her, lost the uncompromising zeal of his earliest manhood.  Only too consciously he had descended to a lower level; politics tempted him because they offered a field in which he could exercise his most questionable faculty, and earn with it a speedy return of the praise to which he was so susceptible.  It marks his position to state that, when politics began seriously to hold his thoughts, he was with difficulty able to decide to which party he should attach himself.  To be sure, if names could be taken as sufficient, he was a Liberal, a Radical; but how different his interpretation of such titles from that they bore to men of affairs!  Respect for the masses he had none; interest in their affairs he had none either.  On the other hand, the tone of uninstructed Conservatism—­that is to say, of the party so stamped—­he altogether despised.  The motive which ultimately decided him to declare himself a Liberal was purely of sentiment; he remembered what Mrs. Baxendale had said about the hardships of poor Hood, and consequently allied himself with those who profess to be the special friends of the toiling multitude.

From the first he talked freely with Beatrice of his projects; he even exaggerated to her the cynicism with which he framed and pursued them.  He could never have talked in this way to Emily.  With Beatrice the tone did not injure him in the least, partly because she did not take it altogether seriously, yet more owing to the habit of mind whereby women in general subordinate principle to the practical welfare of the individual.  If Wilfrid found a sphere for the display of his talents, Beatrice eared nothing to dwell upon abstract points.  Politics were a recognised profession for gentlemen, and offered brilliant prizes; that was enough.  She was pleased, on the whole, that his line should be one of moderation; it was socially advantageous; it made things pleasant with friends of the most various opinions.  That Wilfrid took her into his confidence was to her a great happiness.  In secret she felt it would be the beginning of closer intimacy, of things which women—­heaven be praised!—­esteem of vastly more importance than intellectual convictions or the interest of party.