.

"I begin to understand how it is that people take to drinking," she said
to Algitha, who used to bemoan this vice, with its terrible results, of
which she had seen so much.

"Ah! don't talk of it in that light way!" cried Algitha. "It is the
fashion to treat it airily, but if people only knew what an awful curse
it is, I think they would feel ashamed to be 'moderate' and indifferent
about it."

"I don't mean to treat it or anything that brings harm and suffering
'moderately,'" returned Hadria. "I mean only that I can see why the vice
is so common. It causes forgetfulness, and I suppose most people crave
for that."

"I think, Hadria, if I may be allowed to say so, that you are finding
your excitement in another direction."

"You mean that I am trying to find a substitute for the pleasures of
drunkenness in those of flirtation."

"I should not like to think that you had descended to _conscious_
flirtation."

Hadria looked steadily into the flames. They were in the morning-room,
where towards night-fall, even in summer, a small fire usually burnt in
the grate.

"When I remember what you used to think and what you used to be to us
all, in the old days at Dunaghee, I feel bitterly pained at what you are
doing, Hadria. You don't know where it may lead to, and besides it seems
so beneath you in every way."

"Appeals to the conscience!" cried Hadria, "I knew they would begin!"

"You knew _what_ would begin?"

"Appeals, exhortations to forego the sole remaining interest,
opportunity, or amusement that is left one! Ah, dear Algitha, I know you
mean it kindly and I admire you for speaking out, but I am not going to
be cajoled in that way! I am not going to be turned back and set
tramping along the stony old road, so long as I can find a pleasanter
by-way to loiter in. It sounds bad I know. Our drill affects us to the
last, through every fibre. My duty! By what authority do people choose
for me my duty? If I can be forced to abide by their decision in the
matter, let them be satisfied with their power to coerce me, but let
them leave my conscience alone. It does not dance to their piping."

"But you cannot care for this sort of excitement, Hadria."

"If I can get nothing else----?"

"Even then, I can't see what you can find in it to make you willing to
sink from your old ideals."

"Ideals! A woman with ideals is like a drowning creature with a
mill-stone round its neck! I have had enough of ideals!"

"It is