ake for oneself a moral code that has to lay its foundation-stone in
that very injury? And if one lays one's foundation-stone in open ground
beyond, then one's code is out of touch with present fact, and one's
morality consists in sheer revolt all along the line. The whole matter
is in confusion. You have to accept Mrs. Walker's and Mrs. Gordon's view
of the case, plainly and simply, or you get off into a sort of morass
and blunder into quicksands."

"Then what happens?"

"That's just what I don't know. That's just why I say that I am probably
wrong, because, in this transition period, there seems to be no clear
right."

"To cease to believe in right and wrong would be to founder morally,
altogether," Valeria warned.

"I know, and yet I begin to realize how true it is that there is no such
thing as absolute right or wrong. It is related to the case and the
moment."

"This leads up to some desperate deed or other, Hadria," cried her
friend, "I have feared it, or hoped it, I scarcely know which, for some
time. But you alarm me to-day."

"If I believed in the efficacy of a desperate deed, Valeria, I should
not chafe as I do, against the conditions of the present scheme of
things. If individuals could find a remedy for themselves, with a little
courage and will, there would be less occasion to growl."

"But can they not?"

"Can they?" asked Hadria. "A woman without means of livelihood, breaks
away from her moorings--well, it is as if a child were to fall into the
midst of some gigantic machinery that is going at full speed. Let her
try the feat, and the cracking of her bones by the big wheels will
attest its hopelessness. And yet I long to try!" Hadria added beneath
her breath.

Miss Du Prel admitted that success was rare in the present delirious
state of competition. Individuals here and there pulled through.

"I told you years ago that Nature had chosen our sex for ill-usage. Try
what we may, defeat and suffering await us, in one form or another. You
are dissatisfied with your form of suffering, I with mine. A creature in
pain always thinks it would be more bearable if only it were on the
other side."

"Ah, I know you won't admit it," said Hadria, "but some day we shall all
see that this is the result of human cruelty and ignorance, and that it
is no more 'intended' or inherently necessary than that children should
be born with curvature of the spine, or rickets. Some day it will be as
clear as noon, that h