other man,
and so I pass my days alone--a waif and stray, without anything or
anyone to live for."

"At least you have your work to live for, which is to live for many,
instead of for one or two."

"Ah, that does not satisfy the heart."

"What _does_?" Hadria exclaimed.

Anxiety about Professor Fortescue now made a gloomy background to the
responsibilities of Hadria's present life. Valeria's occasional visits
were its bright spots. She looked forward to them, with pathetic
eagerness. The friendship became closer than it had ever been before,
since Valeria had confided her sad secret.

"Yet, Valeria, I envy you."

"Envy me?" she repeated blankly.

"I have never known what a great passion like that means; I have never
felt what you feel, and surely to live one's life with all its pettiness
and pain, yet never to know its extreme experiences, is sadder than to
have those experiences and suffer through them."

"Ah, yes, you are right," Valeria admitted. "I would not be without it
if I could."

The thought of what she had missed was beginning to take a hold upon
Hadria. Her life was passing, passing, and the supreme gifts would never
be hers. She must for ever stand outside, and be satisfied with shadows
and echoes.

"Are you very miserable, Hadria?" Valeria asked, one day.

"I am benumbed a little now," Hadria replied. "That must be, if one is
to go on at all. It is a provision of nature, I suppose. All that was
threatening before I went to Paris, is now being fulfilled. I can
scarcely realize how I could ever have had the hopefulness to make that
attempt. I might have known I could not succeed, as things are. How
_could_ I? But I am glad of the memory. It pains me sometimes, when all
the acute delight and charm return, at the call of some sound or scent,
some vivid word; but I would not be without the memory and the dream--my
little illusion."

"Supposing," said Valeria after a long pause, "that you could live your
life over again, what would you do?"

"I don't know. It is my impression that in my life, as in the lives of
most women, all roads lead to Rome. Whether one does this or that, one
finds oneself in pretty much the same position at the end. It doesn't
answer to rebel against the recognized condition of things, and it
doesn't answer to submit. Only generally one _must_, as in my case. A
choice of calamities is not always permitted."

"It is so difficult to know which is the least," said Valeria.