But even this little angry gleam of comfort has but a short life. Soon, too soon, it occurs to her that men do not look at a woman with women's eyes. Men, being three parts animal themselves, condone any offence to a woman the animal part of whom is perfect and beautiful. How else is it that beauty--mere blank beauty, although destitute of any accessory charms--can always command its price in the market, and that price a high one? In marrying Constance, St. John will have no disappointments to undergo, no discoveries to make. He has known her all her life; has seen her change from a handsome stupid child into a handsomer stupider girl, and bloom, lastly, into a handsomest, stupidest woman. Constance has no antecedents; she is a woman without a history. That also is in her favour. A man likes to write his name on a sheet of white paper better than on one upon which many other men have written theirs. Perfectly virtuous, perfectly healthy, perfectly beautiful, young, rich, not ill-tempered, not fast, not shrew-tongued--surely she is a prize worth any man's drawing. If, in addition to her long list of qualifications, she possessed also Desdemona's heart and Imogen's mind, it would be too hard upon the rest of womankind: "Why should one woman have all goodly things?" Want of sympathy with the companion of her life makes a woman embittered, reckless--sends her often trespassing on her neighbours' preserves, in the endeavour to find there that congeniality of spirit which is not to be met with in her own. Want of sympathy with the companion of _his_ life sends a man oftener to his club; makes him much pleasanter to other women when he goes into society; makes him sulky and sleepy when he dines at home--that is all. Doubtless St. John will be indifferent to his bride at first; he will dislocate his jaw with yawning during their wedding-tour, but she will bear him children; "selon les us et coutumes Anglaises, elle aura beaucoup d'enfants;" he will like her for that. Year by year they will come here to Blessington, probably. Year by year she (Esther) will see the blossom of a fuller contentment on his wide brow, the quiet of a deeper rest in his restless eyes. And she herself will be here always, for one cannot throw away one's daily bread. Year by year they will find her with ever thinner hair, sharper shoulders, drabber cheeks; and he, looking upon her with the forgiveness of complete indifference, will say to himself, "She is bad, and she is ugly; I was well rid of her!" Than to be so forgiven, how much rather would she have been struck down dead by his hand, lifted in righteous anger and vengeance, on that moonlit September night, beside the glassy rush-brimmed mere at Felton! A sudden rage at her own fatuity fills her, when she looks back on that idiotic hope that had upsprung in her mind, that his object in coming to Blessington was to pardon her, and take her back to himself. Do men ever pardon a sin against themselves?