too
much. He needed the spur of adversity and the light of battle with his
fellowmen. Experience and worldly wisdom could make him a useful and
worthy citizen, since fundamentally there was nothing seriously wrong
with him.

Peg's outlook on life was distinctly becoming clarifled.

Lastly, she thought of Ethel. Poor, unhappy, lonely Ethel! In her
little narrow ignorance, Peg had taken an intense dislike to her cousin
from the beginning. Once or twice she had made friendly overtures to
Ethel, and had always been repulsed. She placed Ethel in the category
of selfish English-snobdom that she had heard and read about and now,
apparently, met face to face. Then came the vivid experience at night
when Ethel laid bare her soul pitilessly and torrentially for Peg to
see. With it came the realisation of the heart-ache and misery of this
outwardly contented and entirely unemotional young lady. Beneath the
veneer of repression and convention Peg saw the fires of passion
blazing in Ethel, and the cry of revolt and hatred against her
environment. But for Peg she would have thrown away her life on a
creature such as Brent because there was no one near her to understand
and to pity and to succour.

Peg shuddered as she thought of the rash act Ethel had been saved
from--blackening her life in the company of that satyr.

How many thousands of girls were there in England today, well-educated,
skilled in the masonry of society--to all outward seeming perfectly
contented, awaiting their final summons to the marriage-market--the
culmination of their brief, inglorious careers. Yet if one could
penetrate beneath the apparent calm, one might find boiling in THEIR
blood and beating in THEIR brains the same revolt that had driven Ethel
to the verge of the Dead Sea of lost hopes and vain ambitions--the
vortex of scandal.

When from time to time a girl of breeding and of family elopes with an
under-servant or a chauffeur, the unfortunate incident is hushed up and
the parents attribute the unhappy occurrence primarily to some mental
or moral twist in the young lady. They should seek the fault in their
own hearts and lives. It is the home life of England that is
responsible for a large portion of the misery that drives the victims
to open revolt. The children are not taught from the time they can
first speak to be perfectly frank and honest about everything they
think and feel. They are too often left in the care of servants at an
age when p