e hints behind it
all of the ancient magic art of Pan. She felt Amy ceaselessly bringing
her out. This gave her thrills of excitement. And looking at her
sister she asked:

"Shall I ever be like that?"

And they kept talking, talking. And through it all the same feeling was
there, the sense of this driving force of the town.

With the sturdy independence which was so deep a part of her, Ethel
strove to hold up her end of these intent conversations and show that
she had views of her own. She was no old-fashioned country girl, but
modern, something different! They had discussed things in her club
which would have shocked their mothers, discussed them long and
seriously. They had spoken of marriage and divorce, of love and having
children, and then had gone eagerly on to suffrage, jobs and "mental
science," art, music and the rest of life. She had gathered there an
image of New York as a glittering region of strong clever men and
fascinating women, who not only loved to dance but held the most
brilliant discussions at dinners livened by witty remarks--a place of
vistas opening into a world of great ideas. And now with her older
sister, she questioned her about it all, the art and all the
"movements," the "salons" and the clever talk. She asked:

"Do you know any suffragists? Do you know any men who write plays or
novels, or any musicians or painters--or actresses?" And again and again
by an air of assurance Ethel tried to hide her dismay, as her sister
subtly made all this seem like a school-girl's fancies.

"Yes," Amy would say good-humouredly, "there are such people, I
suppose--plenty of them, all over town. And they talk and talk and hold
meetings, and they go to high-brow plays--and some women even work. But
it doesn't sound very thrilling, does it? I don't know. They never
seem to me quite real."

And then Amy would go on to hint what did seem real to her in life. And
again that picture of the town, all centred on what emerged from the
shops and poured into the cafes to dance, was painted for her sister.

But behind her smiling manner of one with an intimate knowledge of life,
Amy would glance at the girl by her side in a curious, rather anxious
way. For vaguely she knew that years ago when she herself had come to
New York, she too had had dreams and imaginings of what her young sister
called "the real thing." And she knew that these had dropped away--at
first in the struggle, which for her had been so intense