ything. Did you never think of the disparity of their social
position?"

"We were mad--drunk with rebellion. We had no common-sense. As soon as
you came, you saw and foresaw everything."

"Oh, I don't think that." He was vaguely displeased at being credited
with common-sense. For a moment Miss Abbott had seemed to him more
unconventional than himself.

"I hope you see," she concluded, "why I have troubled you with this long
story. Women--I heard you say the other day--are never at ease till they
tell their faults out loud. Lilia is dead and her husband gone to
the bad--all through me. You see, Mr. Herriton, it makes me specially
unhappy; it's the only time I've ever gone into what my father calls
'real life'--and look what I've made of it! All that winter I seemed to
be waking up to beauty and splendour and I don't know what; and when the
spring came, I wanted to fight against the things I hated--mediocrity
and dulness and spitefulness and society. I actually hated society for
a day or two at Monteriano. I didn't see that all these things are
invincible, and that if we go against them they will break us to pieces.
Thank you for listening to so much nonsense."

"Oh, I quite sympathize with what you say," said Philip encouragingly;
"it isn't nonsense, and a year or two ago I should have been saying it
too. But I feel differently now, and I hope that you also will change.
Society is invincible--to a certain degree. But your real life is your
own, and nothing can touch it. There is no power on earth that can
prevent your criticizing and despising mediocrity--nothing that can stop
you retreating into splendour and beauty--into the thoughts and beliefs
that make the real life--the real you."

"I have never had that experience yet. Surely I and my life must be
where I live."

Evidently she had the usual feminine incapacity for grasping philosophy.
But she had developed quite a personality, and he must see more of her.
"There is another great consolation against invincible mediocrity," he
said--"the meeting a fellow-victim. I hope that this is only the first
of many discussions that we shall have together."

She made a suitable reply. The train reached Charing Cross, and they
parted,--he to go to a matinee, she to buy petticoats for the corpulent
poor. Her thoughts wandered as she bought them: the gulf between herself
and Mr. Herriton, which she had always known to be great, now seemed to
her immeasurable.

These even