on's chickens. And then we could have nice things
to eat. Nice birds and pastry ... and trifle, and ices, and wine.... Not
all this muck!"

"Muck!" cried Emmy, her lips seeming to thicken. "When I'm so
hot.... And sick of it all! _You_ go out; you do just exactly what you
like.... And then you come home and...." She began to gulp. "What about
me?"

"Well, it's just as bad for both of us!" Jenny did not think so really;
but she said it. She thought Emmy had the bread and butter pudding
nature, and that she did not greatly care what she ate as long as it was
not too fattening. Jenny thought of Emmy as born for housework and
cooking--of stew and bread puddings. For herself she had dreamed a
nobler destiny, a destiny of romance, of delicious unknown things,
romantic and indescribably exciting. She was to have the adventures,
because she needed them. Emmy didn't need them. It was all very well for
Emmy to say "What about me!" It was no business of hers what happened to
Emmy. They were different. Still, she repeated more confidently because
there had been no immediate retort:

"Well, it's just as bad for both of us! _Just_ as bad!"

"'Tisn't! You're out all day--doing what you like!"

"Oh!" Jenny's eyes opened with theatrical wideness at such a perversion
of the facts. "Doing what I like! The millinery!"

"You are! You don't have to do all the scraping to make things go round,
like I have to. No, you don't! Here have I ... been in this ... place,
slaving! Hour after hour! I wish _you'd_ try and manage better. I bet
you'd be thankful to finish up the scraps some way--any old way! I'd
like to see _you_ do what I do!"

Momentarily Jenny's picture of Emmy's nature (drawn accommodatingly by
herself in order that her own might be differentiated and exalted by
any comparison) was shattered. Emmy's vehemence had thus the temporary
effect of creating a fresh reality out of a common idealisation of
circumstance. The legend would re-form later, perhaps, and would
continue so to re-form as persuasion flowed back upon Jenny's egotism,
until it crystallised hard and became unchallengeable; but at any rate
for this instant Jenny had had a glimmer of insight into that tamer
discontent and rebelliousness that encroached like a canker upon Emmy's
originally sweet nature. The shock of impact with unpleasant conviction
made Jenny hasten to dissemble her real belief in Emmy's born
inferiority. Her note was changed from one of complaint in