in her rocking-chair, and the gray woollen shawl thrown round her
shoulders mingled with her gray hair. Her long, handsome face was a
little pale, and her dark eyes darker than usual.

'I don't feel well enough,' she replied calmly.

She had not observed the tremor in my voice.

'But what's the matter?' I insisted.

'Nothing in particular, my dear. I do not feel equal to the exertion.'

'But, auntie--then I can't go, either.'

'I'm very sorry, dear,' she said. 'We will go to the next concert.'

'Diaz will never come again!' I exclaimed passionately. 'And the tickets
will be wasted.'

'My dear,' my Aunt Constance repeated, 'I am not equal to it. And you
cannot go alone.'

I was utterly selfish in that moment. I cared nothing whatever for my
aunt's indisposition. Indeed, I secretly accused her of maliciously
choosing that night of all nights for her mysterious fatigue.

'But, auntie,' I said, controlling myself, 'I must go, really. I shall
send Lucy over with a note to Ethel Ryley to ask her to go with me.'

'Do,' said my aunt, after a considerable pause, 'if you are bent
on going.'

I have often thought since that during that pause, while we faced each
other, my aunt had for the first time fully realized how little she knew
of me; she must surely have detected in my glance a strangeness, a
contemptuous indifference, an implacable obstinacy, which she had never
seen in it before. And, indeed, these things were in my glance. Yet I
loved my aunt with a deep affection. I had only one grievance against
her. Although excessively proud, she would always, in conversation with
men, admit her mental and imaginative inferiority, and that of her sex.
She would admit, without being asked, that being a woman she could not
see far, that her feminine brain could not carry an argument to the end,
and that her feminine purpose was too infirm for any great enterprise.
She seemed to find a morbid pleasure in such confessions. As regards
herself, they were accurate enough; the dear creature was a singularly
good judge of her own character. What I objected to was her assumption,
so calm and gratuitous, that her individuality, with all its confessed
limitations, was, of course, superior--stronger, wiser, subtler than
mine. She never allowed me to argue with her; or if she did, she treated
my remarks with a high, amused tolerance. 'Wait till you grow older,' she
would observe, magnificently ignorant of the fact that my soul was
a