d in
Europe. That's to be the title of an address I am now preparing, by the
way. Yes, I don't depend on father any more," she went on, while
Ransom's sense of having said too sarcastic a thing was deepened by her
perfect indifference to it. "He finds his patients draw off about
enough, any way. But I owe him everything; if it hadn't been for him, no
one would ever have known I had a gift--not even myself. He started me
so, once for all, that I now go alone."

"You go beautifully," said Ransom, wanting to say something agreeable,
and even respectfully tender, to her, but troubled by the fact that
there was nothing he could say that didn't sound rather like chaff.
There was no resentment in her, however, for in a moment she said to
him, as quickly as it occurred to her, in the manner of a person
repairing an accidental omission, "It was very good of you to come so
far."

This was a sort of speech it was never safe to make to Ransom; there was
no telling what retribution it might entail. "Do you suppose any journey
is too great, too wearisome, when it's a question of so great a
pleasure?" On this occasion it was not worse than that.

"Well, people _have_ come from other cities," Verena answered, not with
pretended humility, but with pretended pride. "Do you know Cambridge?"

"This is the first time I have ever been here."

"Well, I suppose you have heard of the university; it's so celebrated."

"Yes--even in Mississippi. I suppose it's very fine."

"I presume it is," said Verena; "but you can't expect me to speak with
much admiration of an institution of which the doors are closed to our
sex."

"Do you then advocate a system of education in common?"

"I advocate equal rights, equal opportunities, equal privileges. So does
Miss Chancellor," Verena added, with just a perceptible air of feeling
that her declaration needed support.

"Oh, I thought what she wanted was simply a different inequality--simply
to turn out the men altogether," Ransom said.

"Well, she thinks we have great arrears to make up. I do tell her,
sometimes, that what she desires is not only justice but vengeance. I
think she admits that," Verena continued, with a certain solemnity. The
subject, however, held her but an instant, and before Ransom had time to
make any comment, she went on, in a different tone: "You don't mean to
say you live in Mississippi _now_? Miss Chancellor told me when you were
in Boston before, that you had located in New