"In the first place, you're
the most beautiful woman I've ever seen; in the second, you have an
exceptionally nice nature."
If Hirst had looked at her instead of looking intently at his teacup
he would have seen Helen blush, partly with pleasure, partly with an
impulse of affection towards the young man who had seemed, and would
seem again, so ugly and so limited. She pitied him, for she suspected
that he suffered, and she was interested in him, for many of the things
he said seemed to her true; she admired the morality of youth, and yet
she felt imprisoned. As if her instinct were to escape to something
brightly coloured and impersonal, which she could hold in her hands,
she went into the house and returned with her embroidery. But he was not
interested in her embroidery; he did not even look at it.
"About Miss Vinrace," he began,--"oh, look here, do let's be St. John
and Helen, and Rachel and Terence--what's she like? Does she reason,
does she feel, or is she merely a kind of footstool?"
"Oh no," said Helen, with great decision. From her observations at
tea she was inclined to doubt whether Hirst was the person to educate
Rachel. She had gradually come to be interested in her niece, and fond
of her; she disliked some things about her very much, she was amused by
others; but she felt her, on the whole, a live if unformed human being,
experimental, and not always fortunate in her experiments, but with
powers of some kind, and a capacity for feeling.
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