smiled.

"It is true," she admitted. "A woman must not renounce too much if she
desires to retain her influence."

"_Pas trop de zele_," Hadria quoted.

"There is something truly unmanageable about you, my dear!" cried
Valeria, much amused. "Well, I too have had just that sort of instinct,
just that imperious demand, just that impatience of restraint. I too
regarded myself and my powers as mine to use as I would, responsible
only to my own conscience. I decided to have freedom though the heavens
should fall. I was unfitted by temperament to face the world, but I was
equally unfitted to pay the price for protection--the blackmail that
society levies on a woman: surrender of body and of soul. What could one
expect, in such a case, but disaster? I often envy now the simple-minded
woman who pays her price and has her reward--such as it is."

"Ah! such as it is!" echoed Hadria.

"Who was it said, the other day, that she thought a wise woman always
took things as they were, and made the best of them?"

"Some dull spirit."

"And yet a practical spirit."

"I am quite sure," said Hadria, "that the stokers of hell are practical
spirits."

"Your mother must have had her work cut out for her when she undertook
to bring you up," exclaimed Miss Du Prel.

"So she always insinuates," replied Hadria demurely.

They were spinning down hill now, into a warm bit of country watered by
the river, and Hadria drew rein. The spot was so pleasant that they
alighted, tied the pony to a tree, and wandered over the grass to the
river's edge. Hadria picked her way from stone to slippery stone, into
the middle of the river, where there was comparatively safe standing
room. Here she was suddenly inspired to execute the steps of a reel,
while Valeria stood dismayed on the bank, expecting every moment, to see
the dance end in the realms of the trout.

But Hadria kept her footing, and continued to step it with much
solemnity. Meanwhile, two young men on horseback were coming down the
road; but as a group of trees hid it from the river at this point, they
were not noticed. The horsemen stopped suddenly when they cleared the
group of trees. The figure of a young woman in mid-stream, dancing a
reel with extreme energy and correctness, and without a smile, was
sufficiently surprising to arrest them.

"As I thought," exclaimed Hadria, "it is Harold Wilkins!"

"I shall be glad to see this conquering hero," said Valeria.

Hadria, who had know