of sex are working within her all unconsciously, Harold, to whom her
heart would probably have been the first to turn, made himself in his
effort to best show his love, a quantite negligeable.

Thus Stephen, whilst feeling that the vague desires of budding
womanhood were trembling within her, had neither thought nor
knowledge of their character or their ultimate tendency. She would
have been shocked, horrified, had that logical process, which she
applied so freely to less personal matters, been used upon her own
intimate nature. In her case logic would of course act within a
certain range; and as logic is a conscious intellectual process, she
became aware that her objective was man. Man--in the abstract.
'Man,' not 'a man.' Beyond that, she could not go. It is not too
much to say that she did not ever, even in her most errant thought,
apply her reasoning, or even dream of its following out either the
duties, the responsibilities, or the consequences of having a
husband. She had a vague longing for younger companionship, and of
the kind naturally most interesting to her. There thought stopped.

One only of her male acquaintances did not at this time appear.
Leonard Everard, who had some time ago finished his course at
college, was living partly in London and partly on the Continent.
His very absence made him of added interest to his old play-fellow.
The image of his grace and comeliness, of his dominance and masculine
force, early impressed on her mind, began to compare favourably with
the actualities of her other friends; those of them at least who were
within the circle of her personal interest. 'Absence makes the heart
grow fonder.' In Stephen's mind had been but a very mustard-seed of
fondness. But new lights were breaking for her; and all of them, in
greater or lesser degree, shone in turn on the memory of the pretty