ntain. Through her whole ripened being, the passion of that inner
debate was still echoing; though she knew that the fight was really won.
It had run something like this:

"Why am I suffering like this?

"Because I am relaxed--unstrung. Why should I have everything I
want--when others go bare? Philip went bare for years. He endured--and
suffered. Why not I?

"But it is worse for me--who am young! I have a right to give way to what
I feel--to feel it to the utmost.

"That was the doctrine for women before the war--the old-fashioned women.
The modern woman is stronger. She is not merely nerves and feeling. She
must _never_ let feeling--pain--destroy her will! Everything depends upon
her will. If I choose I _can_ put this feeling down. I have no right to
it. Philip has done me no wrong. If I yield to it, if it darkens my life,
it will be another grief added to those he has already suffered. It
shan't darken my life. I will--and can master it. There is so much still
to learn, to do, to feel. I must wrench myself free--and go forward. How
I chattered to Philip about the modern woman!--and how much older I feel,
than I was then! If one can't master oneself, one is a slave--all the
same. I didn't know--how could I know?--that the test was so near. If
women are to play a greater and grander part in the world, they must be
much, much greater in soul, firmer in will.

"Yet--I must cry a little. No one could forbid me that. But it must be
over soon."

Then the letters from Beechmark had begun to arrive, each of them
bringing its own salutary smart as part of a general cautery. No guardian
could write more kindly, more considerately. But it was easy to see that
Philip's whole being was, and would be, concentrated on his unfortunate
son. And in that ministry Cynthia Welwyn was his natural partner, had
indeed already stepped into the post; so that gratitude, if not passion,
would give her sooner or later all that she desired.

"Cynthia has got the boy into her hands--and Philip with him. Well, that
was natural. Shouldn't I have done the same? Why should I feel like a
jealous beast, because Cynthia has had her chance, and taken it? I won't
feel like this! It's vile!--it's degrading! Only I wish Cynthia was
bigger, more generous--because he'll find it out some day. She'll never
like me, just because he cares for me--or did. I mean, as my guardian, or
an elder brother. For it was never--no never!--anything else. So when she
come