o longer insuperable; she heard of fortunate
players who mingled on equal terms with men and women of refinement.
There, she imagined, was her ultimate goal. 'It is to _them_ that I
belong! Be my origin what it may, I have the intelligence and the
desires of one born to freedom, Nothing in me, nothing, is akin to that
gross world from which I have escaped!' So she thought--with every drop
of her heart's blood crying its source from that red fountain of revolt
whereon never yet did the upper daylight gleam! Brain and pulses such
as hers belong not to the mild breed of mortals fostered in sunshine.
But for the stroke of fate, she might have won that reception which was
in her dream, and with what self-mockery when experience had matured
itself! Never yet did true rebel, who has burst the barriers of social
limitation, find aught but _ennui_ in the trim gardens beyond.

When John asked if the book had given her amusement, she said that
reading made her eyes ache. He noticed that her hand felt feverish, and
that the dark mood had fallen upon her as badly as ever to-night.

'It's just what I said,' she exclaimed with abruptness, after long
refusal to speak. 'I knew your friend would never come as long as I was
here.'

John regarded her anxiously. The phrase 'your friend' had a peculiar
sound that disturbed him. It made him aware that she had been thinking
often of Sidney Kirkwood since his name had been dismissed from their
conversation. He, too, had often turned his mind uneasily in the same
direction, wondering whether he ought to have spoken of Sidney so
freely. At the time it seemed best, indeed almost inevitable; but habit
and the force of affection were changing his view of Clara in several
respects. He recognised the impossibility of her continuing to live as
now, yet it was as difficult as ever to conceive a means of aiding her.
Unavoidably he kept glancing towards Kirkwood. He knew that Sidney was
no longer a free man; he knew that, even had it been otherwise, Clara
could be nothing to him. In spite of facts, the father kept brooding on
what might have been. His own love was perdurable; how could it other
than intensify when its object was so unhappy? His hot, illogical mood
all but brought about a revival of the old resentment against Sidney.

'I haven't seen him for a week or two,' he replied, in an embarrassed
way.

'Did he tell you be shouldn't come?'

'No. After we'd talked about it, you know--when you to