On the other hand, just as she had once endowed Emmet with possibilities he never possessed, so now, in her disillusion, she lost sight of those primitive virtues that would always make him a force for good in whatever level he was destined to reach. Unjust to him in the beginning, she was unjust to him still. Felicity Wycliffe was a mystery to herself no less than to others. The normal functions of her sex had dropped so far below her ken, in the course of her complicated development, as to seem negligible. Beginning with this negation, she had passed rapidly on to an attitude of universal scepticism, to which religion was merely a matter of taste, and prayer was a psychological phenomenon. She was not one to lend herself to the constructive dreams of men, or to attach herself to their theories. Her weariness of her father's academic plans presaged her disillusion in regard to Emmet's career, even if he had been what she first imagined him. Her colossal egotism demanded everything from a man, and was prepared to give nothing in return, except the precarious possession of herself. Yet what man, fascinated by the mysterious unrest and nocturnal splendour of her eyes, would not gladly pay for that possession whatever price she might demand? Presently, when their silence had again become awkward, she began to speak of impersonal things; of the strange transformation of the night, lately so oppressive and obscure, now so dazzlingly serene; of the carrying power of sound in the stillness about--a dog's barking, the distant notes of the bell in the tower of the First Church striking the hour of eleven. As they passed the Hall, she saw that the windows of Leigh's room were again dark, and imagined that he had taken advantage of the clearing atmosphere to ascend to the top of the tower and resume his observations. Emmet, following the direction of her eyes upward, divined her thought. "The professor is probably looking at the moon through his telescope," he remarked. "Yes," she answered, in a tone as casual as his own, "he would doubtless not lose this opportunity of examining the cracks that have appeared recently on its surface, if he can see them with that lens, which is n't likely. They are said to be hundreds, or even thousands, of miles long, and only a few yards in width." Her knowledge of such a recent astronomical discovery confirmed his suspicion that she and Leigh saw much of each other. Knowing the man's infatuation with her by his own confession, he now became convinced that she returned it; that she had used his fault in regard to Lena Harpster to justify its counterpart in herself. Correct in his main surmise, he was nevertheless mistaken concerning the source of her information, a short press despatch from the Lick Observatory which he had overlooked in the morning paper.