asily now, and fits of depression were more frequent.
She was vaguely aware that something could cure her discontent, and once
or twice in moments of extreme weakness caught herself envying the girls
who seemed so happy with their mild lovers. She began to contemplate the
prospect of mating with one of the swains who inhabited, awkwardly
enough, the desolation of Sunday evenings. She even went so far as to
award the most persistent an afternoon at the Hackney Furnishing
Company; but when, blushful and stammering, he discussed with the
shopman the comparative merits of brass and iron bedsteads, Jenny,
suddenly realizing the futility of the idea, fled from the jungle of
furniture.

These negotiations with domesticity drove her headlong into a more
passionate pursuit of folly, so that, with the colorless shadow of mere
matrimony filling her soul, her clutch upon the sweet present became
more feverish. She watched the adventures of girlhood fall prettily
about her; saw them like unsubstantial snowflakes that are effective
only in accumulation. Yet the transitory lovers of the stage door were
beginning also to become intolerable. She could not brook, so slim and
proud was she, their immediate assumption of proprietorship. She hated
the cheapening of her kisses and their imperviousness to her womanhood.

Where among these eager-handed wooers was the prince of destiny? Not he
with box-pleats underneath his eyes, nor he with the cold, slick
fingers, nor he peppered with blackheads. Love was a myth, a snare, a
delusion of women, who sacrificed their freedom in marriage. She
remembered how in old days Santa Claus had turned into her mother on
tiptoe. Love was another legend. The emotion that begot the fancy of
armed boyhood mischievous to man was as incredible to her as the dimpled
personification is to a Hyde Park materialist.

Jenny asked Irene if the love of Danby had brought her satisfaction.
When her friend said she rather liked him, she inquired what was the
good of it all.

"I think he's making a proper fool of you. Why don't _I_ fall in love?
Because I'm not so soft. Besides, you're not in love. You're just
walking round yourselves having a game with each other."

"Oh, well, what of it?" said Irene sulkily.

"Don't be silly. I never knew such a girl as you. You can't talk
sensible for a minute. I want to know what this love is."

"You'll find out one day."

"Ah, one day. _One_ day I shall go and drown myself. Ire