n at war in me; and the violence of
their blows has sometimes torn my life asunder. I no longer have cause
to complain of it now, because time and love have helped me to reconcile
them. Our powers are injurious to us so long as we do not know how to
use them. I have suffered, I still suffer from my creeping knowledge. I
would like to increase the pace of yours. Is it impossible?

"And so I dreamed all day and, of course, I dreamed of you, the Rose
whom I am always picturing. I imagined that we had arranged to see each
other this evening. You walked into the drawing-room, drenched with the
rain, pink-cheeked with the cold. You looked very pretty, in a frock
that suited your face and your figure. You knew how to hold yourself!
You knew how to walk! Your movements were graceful! After talking for a
little while by the fire, we both sat down at the table, under the
lamp-light, and there began our usual work. What work it was I cannot
tell; but it will be easy for us to choose: we have everything to learn;
and I feel that both our minds must follow the same path for some time
to come. By placing the same objects before them, we shall succeed in
discovering what you really feel and what you really wish. That is the
only way of delivering your mind from my involuntary dominion and of
distinguishing your image from mine. I have no other ideal than to feel
myself actually moving, even though the movement be an inconsistent
one. How could I invite you to a similarity which is nothing but a
perpetual dissimilarity?

"You must cease to be an echo. I shall map out no course for you; and we
do not know what will become of you. Let us first walk at random. The
goal is not always visible; but very often the road travelled tells us
which road to take next. It matters little what work we do, provided
that it gives a sort of tone to our meetings and that it regulates our
hours. The freaks of chance and the youthfulness of our minds will
always furnish colour and fancy in plenty....

"Understand me, Roseline: it is not a friend that I am seeking, not one
of those uncertain, light-hearted, capricious relations which encumber
life without adding to it. I am dreaming like a child, of a woman who
should realise the greatest possible amount of beauty in her mind and
person and who should add her strength to mine in the service of the
same ideals. Rose, are you that woman? Will you help me to deliver other
women still who are oppressed by circ