This was very sublime. I sing, or Mr. Senhouse sings, a Goddess in her own Right. That is to be observed, or we fail. Persons have existed, and do yet exist, who are law unto themselves, deliberate choosers of their fate, deliberate allies of Atropos with the shears, who go what seems to us, shivering on the brink of things, a bright and bloodstained way, and furrow deeply into life, because it must be so, because so they will have it. Great ones of time, a Caesar or so, a Catherine, a Buonaparte, come handily to mind, who, wreaking countless woes, wrought evenly their own. And since greatness is a relative term, and time an abstraction of the mind, in their company, says Mr. Senhouse, was Sanchia Percival, and in her blue-clouded eyes was to be discerned seated, like a captain, foreknowledge of her own fate, and will to choose it. But, as for Mr. Senhouse himself, at this time of envisaging of ways I don't believe that he entered her head. Small blame to her, either, seeing that the man, having renounced her, or failed of her, as you please, had taken up with his Mrs. Germain, and found her to be a Fact, as I have related. But to do wrong or right, the prerogative of choice: she arrogated that. So, I think, if the sister of the Far-Darter had ever stepped aside from the path of her lonely delight--as some have it she did on Latmos--she would have done it without shame. It would have been her pleasure and her choice; she would never change countenance or have to breast the flood of colour. It must be hers to take up or discard an empire, or a Nevile Ingram of Wanless Hall. So, in her degree, did Sanchia Percival--of the stuff of goddesses. IX Mrs. Devereux having departed as impressively as might be expected of a lady with a sense of injury, there was little for Chevenix to do but to follow her; for whereas Mrs. Devereux considered herself badly treated by both parties in the house, the young man had to own that he had quarrelled with his host. “I laid for Nevile,” he told Sanchia, “and he don't let me forget it, either. He don't like commentators on his text--never did. So he's making Wanless too hot to hold me.” Sanchia, with rueful eyes, feared that this was her fault. “I'm very sorry,” she said. “On all accounts I'm very sorry. I shall miss you. It was nice to see you again.” “See me again,” cried Chevenix, “as soon as you please; but not here--unless you feel you can make up your mind to settle down, as we call it.” She shook her head. “I don't think I can. I think it might be wicked--as things are.” Chevenix raised his eyebrows. “That's you all over, my dear. Other people's Right is your Wrong. Why question the decrees of the police? They tell you that you may do what you please when you're married, but not before. But you won't have that. Of course, if you can't swallow Nevile, you can't--and there's an end of it. Only,” he added, “there _must_ be an end of it. You're in a false position--now.”