urely
ageing faces, in their furrowed brows, Hadria could trace the marks of
Life's bare and ruthless hand, which had pressed so heavily on those
whose task it had been to bestow the terrible gift. Here the burden had
crushed soul and flesh; here that insensate spirit of Life had worked
its will, gratified its rage to produce and reproduce, it mattered not
what in the semblance of the human, so long only as that wretched
semblance repeated itself, and repeated itself again, _ad nauseam_,
while it destroyed the creatures which it used for its wild purpose----

And the same savage story was written, once more, on the faces of the
better dressed women: worry, weariness, apathy, strain; these were
marked unmistakeably, after the first freshness of youth had been driven
away, and the features began to take the mould of the habitual thoughts
and the habitual impressions.

And on these faces, there was a certain pettiness and coldness not
observable on those of the poorer women.

Often, when one of the neighbours called and found Hadria alone, some
chance word of womanly sympathy would touch a spring, and then a sad,
narrow little story of trouble and difficulty would be poured out; a
revelation of the bewildered, toiling, futile existences that were being
passed beneath a smooth appearance; of the heart-ache and heroism and
misplaced sacrifice, of the ruined lives that a little common sense and
common kindness might have saved; the unending pain and trouble about
matters entirely trivial, entirely absurd; the ceaseless travail to
bring forth new elements of trouble for those who must inherit the deeds
of to-day; the burdened existences agonizing to give birth to new
existences, equally burdened, which in their turn, were to repeat the
ceaseless oblation to the gods of Life.

"Futile?" said Lady Engleton. "I think women are generally fools, _entre
nous_; that is why they so often fill their lives with sound and fury,
accomplishing nothing."

Hadria felt that this was a description of her own life, as well as that
of most of her neighbours.

"I can understand so well how it is that women become conventional," she
said, apparently without direct reference to the last remark, "it is so
useless to take the trouble to act on one's own initiative. It annoys
everybody frightfully, and it accomplishes nothing, as you say."

"My dear Hadria, you alarm me!" cried Lady Engleton, laughing. "You must
really be very ill indeed, if y