that a woman marks, because she
thinks they mean experience an I mastery.

Altogether, to have met him again was pleasure; to think of him was
pleasure; to look forward to hearing him speak in Parliament was
pleasure; so too was his new connection with her old friends. And a
pleasure which took nothing from self-respect; which was open,
honourable, eager. As for that ugly folly of the past, she frowned at
the thought of it, only to thrust the remembrance passionately away.
That _he_ should remember or allude to it, would put an end to
friendship. Otherwise friends they would and should be; and the personal
interest in his public career should lift her out of the cramping
influences that flow from the perpetual commerce of poverty and
suffering. Why not? Such equal friendships between men and women grow
more possible every day. While, as for Hallin's distrust, and Anthony
Craven's jealous hostility, why should a third person be bound by either
of them? Could any one suppose that such a temperament as Wharton's
would be congenial to Hallin or to Craven--or--to yet another person, of
whom she did not want to think? Besides, who wished to make a hero of
him? It was the very complexity and puzzle of the character that made
its force.

* * * * *

So with a reddened cheek, she lost herself a few minutes in this
pleasant sense of a new wealth in life; and was only roused from the
dreamy running to and fro of thought by the appearance of Minta, who
came to clear away the tea.

"Why, it is close on the half-hour!" cried Marcella, springing up.
"Where are my things?"

She looked down the notes of her cases, satisfied herself that her bag
contained all she wanted, and then hastily tied on her bonnet and cloak.

Suddenly--the room was empty, for Minta had just gone away with the
tea--by a kind of subtle reaction, the face in that photograph on
Hallin's table flashed into her mind--its look--the grizzled hair. With
an uncontrollable pang of pain she dropped her hands from the fastenings
of her cloak, and wrung them together in front of her--a dumb gesture of
contrition and of grief.

She!--she talk of social reform and "character," she give her opinion,
as of right, on points of speculation and of ethics, she, whose main
achievement so far had been to make a good man suffer! Something
belittling and withering swept over all her estimate of herself, all her
pleasant self-conceit. Quietly, with d