rks, and their pictures, in time, like the shell-fish out of its
shell. The beauty and the grace which they created or inherited remain.
And why should one be envious of _them_ personally? They have had the
best chances in the world and thrown them away--are but poor animals at
the end! At any rate I can't hate them--they seem to have a
function--when I am moving about Drury Lane!" she added with a smile.

"But how can one help being ashamed?" said Lady Winterbourne, as her
eyes wandered over her pretty room, and she felt herself driven somehow
into playing devil's advocate.

"No! No!" said Marcella, eagerly, "don't be ashamed! As to the people
who make beauty more beautiful--who share it and give it--I often feel
as if I could say to them on my knees, Never, _never_ be ashamed merely
of being rich--of living with beautiful things, and having time to enjoy
them! One might as well be ashamed of being strong rather than a
cripple, or having two eyes rather than one!"

"Oh, but, my dear!" cried Lady Winterbourne, piteous and bewildered,
"when one has all the beauty and the freedom--and other people must
_die_ without any--"

"Oh, I know, I _know_!" said Marcella, with a quick gesture of despair;
"that's what makes the world the world. And one begins with thinking it
can be changed--that it _must_ and _shall_ be changed!--that everybody
could have wealth--could have beauty and rest, and time to think, that
is to say--if things were different--if one could get Socialism--if one
could beat down the capitalist--if one could level down, and level up,
till everybody had 200 _l._ a year. One turns and fingers the puzzle all
day long. It seems so _near_ coming right--one guesses a hundred ways in
which it might be done! Then after a while one stumbles upon doubt--one
begins to see that it never _will_, never _can_ come right--not in any
mechanical way of that sort--that _that_ isn't what was meant!"

Her voice dropped drearily. Betty Macdonald gazed at her with a girl's
nascent adoration. Lady Winterbourne was looking puzzled and unhappy,
but absorbed like Betty in Marcella. Lady Selina, studying the three
with smiling composure, was putting on her veil, with the most careful
attention to fringe and hairpins. As for Ermyntrude, she was no longer
on the sofa; she had risen noiselessly, finger on lip, almost at the
beginning of Marcella's talk, to greet a visitor. She and he were
standing at the back of the room, in the opening