“Florence seems well entertained,” he said aloud, looking at his wife, who was laughing at one of Edmonson’s sallies.  “That’s a brilliant fellow, Mistress Royal; he will make his mark in the world; it’s a pity, though, he hasn’t a fortune to help him forward; he ought to be in Parliament.”

“So he thinks, perhaps,” she answered, remembering something that he had said to her one day on his first visit to the country, and understanding more clearly than ever the use that she might have been in the world.

“Very possibly he does.  He appreciates himself, that is certain.  It’s half the battle to know one’s own power; sometimes I think it’s three-quarters of it.  Because, you see, when a man knows his strong points he’s always meeting others at his best, and as for his worst,—­why, I imagine Edmonson would rather keep those dark.”  Elizabeth looked up inquiringly, but she said nothing, and Sir Temple added, “In fact, most of us would; we don’t expect that charity from men which we find from Heaven.”  She did not answer, and he talked on, for theorizing was a favorite amusement, but his wife always snubbed him when he attempted it, and most men either showed weariness or had theories of their own which they were in such haste to air that his had only half a chance.  Now, here was a young lady ready to listen, and, since it was not because she was unable to talk well herself, her listening was a compliment that he felt.

At first Elizabeth did listen.  But her companion fairly launched, went on excellently by himself, and involuntarily her eyes turned upon Edmonson.  He was very handsome; she wondered if it was his conversation with Lady Dacre that gave him so much animation.  Since circumstances had roused Elizabeth from the dreamy state in which she used to indulge, she had lost something of her belief in his intellectual superiority, for the things that had once seemed so difficult as to be almost impossible to her had suddenly become simple enough; now that, they being required of her, she found herself doing them.  That was the way with Elizabeth; whatever she could do she thought easy; it was the things that she believed lay beyond her for which she had the reverence.  She was not much used to praise; the little that occasionally fell to her surprised and embarrassed her, so that she seemed to receive it coldly, or else the thing itself appeared to her so trivial that doing it well was a matter of course.  She learned with remarkable quickness, for her mind was in good working order and grasped strongly whatever it laid hold of.  A few months ago Edmonson’s social accomplishments had seemed a marvel to her.  Already she was beginning to see that, after all, they did not require a very high order of mind, though she was far from undervaluing them or thinking it possible that she could ever have such power of being agreeable.  She was wondering that day as she watched him how much better ambitions he had, and what life would bring him.  She could not understand him.