Little did Wilfrid suspect the extent to which her thoughts were occupied with that faint, far-off figure of Emily Hood.  It was her despair that she had known Emily so slightly; she would have desired to study to the depths the woman who had possessed such a secret of power.  In personal charm Emily could not compare with her; and yet—­the distinction struck her hard—­that was perhaps only true if personal charm merely meant charm of person, for she herself had experienced something of the strange impressiveness which men—­men of imagination—­submitted to in Emily’s presence.  Where did it lie, this magic?  It was indefinite, indefinable; perhaps a tone of the voice represented it, perhaps a smile—­which meant, of course, that it was inseparable from her being, from her womanhood.  Could one attribute to Emily, even after the briefest acquaintance, a thought, an instinct, which conflicted with the ideal of womanly purity?  Was not her loveliness of the soul?  Moreover, she was intellectual beyond ordinary women; for Wilfrid that must have been a rich source of attraction.  Scarcely less than the image of Wilfrid himself was that of Emily a haunting presence in Beatrice’s life.  Recently she had spoken of her both with Mrs. Birks and Mrs. Baxendale; it cost her something to do so, but both of these had known Emily with intimacy, and might perhaps tell her more than she herself remembered or could divine.  Mrs. Birks was disposed to treat Emily with little seriousness.

‘You make the strangest mistake,’ she said, ’if you think that was anything but a boy’s folly.  To be sure the folly got very near the point of madness—­that was because opposition came in its way.  Wilfrid has for years thought as little of her as of the man in the moon’s wife—­if he has one.  You are surely not troubling yourself—­what?’

Beatrice had thereupon retired into herself.

‘You misunderstand me,’ she said, rather coldly.  ’It was only a recollection of something that had seemed strange to me at the time.’

Mrs. Baxendale held another tone, but even she was not altogether sincere—­naturally it was impossible to be so.  To begin with, she gave Beatrice to understand, even as she had Wilfrid, that she had now for some time lost sight of Emily, and, consequently, that the latter was less actually interesting to her than was in fact the case.  With her aunt Beatrice could be more unreserved; she began by plainly asking whether Mrs. Baxendale thought Wilfrid’s regret had been of long endurance—­a woman in Beatrice’s position clearly could not, in talking to another, even suppose the case that the regret still endured.  Her aunt honestly replied that she believed he had suffered long and severely.

‘But,’ she added, with characteristic tact, ’I did not need this instance, my dear, to prove to me that a first love may be only a preparation for that which is to last through life.  I could tell you stories—­but I haven’t my grandmother’s cap on at present.’