of art--the eternal evidence of man's aloofness, on one side
of him, from the savage element in nature--and glimpses of cathedral
domes and palace walls; and villages clinging like living things to the
hill-sides, or dreaming away their drowsy days in some sunny valley. And
then the mystery that every work of man enshrines; the life, the
thought, the need that it embodies, and the passionate histories that it
hides! It was as if the sum and circumstance of life had mirrored itself
in the memory, once and for all. The South lured her with its languor,
its colour, its hot sun, and its splendid memories. It was exquisite
pleasure and exquisite pain to listen to the anticipations of these two,
who were able to wander as they would.

"Siena?" said Valeria with a sigh, "I used to know Siena when I was
young and happy. That was where I made the fatal mistake in my life. It
is all a thing of the past now. I might have married a good and
brilliantly intellectual man, whom I could respect and warmly admire;
for whom I had every feeling but the one that we romantic women think so
essential, and that people assure us is the first to depart."

"You regret that you held fast to your own standard?" said Hadria.

"I regret that I could not see the wisdom of taking the good that was
offered to me, since I could not have that which I wished. Now I have
neither."

"How do you know you would have found the other good really
satisfactory!"

"I believe in the normal," said Valeria, "having devoted my existence to
an experiment of the abnormal."

"I don't think what we call the normal is, by any means, so safe as it
sounds, for civilized women at any rate," observed the Professor.

Valeria shook her head, and remained silent. But her face expressed the
sad thoughts left unsaid. In youth, it was all very well. One had the
whole world before one, life to explore, one's powers to test. But later
on, when all that seemed to promise fades away, when the dreams drift
out of sight, and strenuous efforts repeated and repeated, are beaten
down by the eternal obstacles; when the heart is wearied by delay,
disappointment, infruition, vain toil, then this once intoxicating world
becomes a place of desolation to the woman who has rebelled against the
common lot. And all the old instincts awake, to haunt and torment; to
demand that which reason has learnt to deny or to scorn; to burden their
victims with the cruel heritage of the past; to whisper re