nt you. But one's whole life becomes a lie."

"That is surely schoolgirl's reasoning. Strange that you should be
guilty of it! Is one's life a lie because one makes so bold as to keep
one's own counsel? Must one take the world into one's confidence, or
stand condemned as a liar? Oh, Hadria, this is childish!"

"Yes, I am getting weak-minded, I know," she said feverishly. "I resent
being forced to resort to this sort of thing when I am doing nothing
wrong, according to my own belief. Why should I be forced to behave as
if I _were_ sinning against my conscience?"

"So you may say; that is your grievance, not your fault. But, after all,
compromise is necessary in _everything_, and the best way is to make the
compromise lightly and with a shrug of the shoulders, and then you find
that life becomes fairly manageable and often extremely pleasant."

"Yes, I suppose you are right." Hadria was picking the petals off a
buttercup one by one, and when she had destroyed one golden corolla, she
attacked another.

"Fate _is_ ironical!" she exclaimed. "Never in my life did I feel more
essentially frank and open-hearted than I feel now."

The Professor laughed.

"My impulse is to indulge in that sort of bluff, boisterous honesty
which forms so charming a feature of our national character. Is it not
disastrous?"

"It _is_ a little inopportune," Theobald admitted with a chuckle.

"Oh, it is no laughing matter! It amounts to a monomania. I long to take
Mrs. Walker aside and say 'Hi! look here, Mrs. Walker, I just want to
mention to you----' and so on; and Mrs. Jordan inspires me with a still
more fatal impulse of frankness. If only for the fun of the thing, I
long to do it."

"You are quite mad, Hadria!" exclaimed the Professor, laughing.

"Oh, no," she said, "only bewildered. I want desperately to be bluff and
outspoken, but I suppose I must dissemble. I long painfully to be like
'truthful James,' but I must follow in the footsteps of the sneaky
little boy who came to a bad end because he told a lie. The question is:
Shall my mother be sacrificed to this passionate love of truth?"

"Or shall I?" asked the Professor. "You seem to forget me. You frighten
me, Hadria. To indulge in frankness just now, means to throw me over,
and if you did that, I don't know how I should be able to stand it. I
should cut my throat."

Hadria buried her face in her hands, as if to shut out distracting
sights and sounds, so that she might think mo