she had
never formulated for Hugo Canning.

"And yet I feel that it might have been different. I've felt--lately--as
if I haven't had much of a chance.... I think I have a mind, or had
one ... some--some spirit and independence, too. But I wasn't trained to
express myself that way; that was all ironed down flat in me. I never
had any education, except what was superficial--showy. I was never
taught to think, or to _do_ anything--or to have any part in serious
things. No one ever told me that I ought to justify my existence, to pay
my way. Nobody ever thought of me as fit to have any share in anything
useful or important--fit for any responsibility.... No, life for me was
to be like butterflies flying, and my part was only to make myself as
ornamental as I could...."

V. Vivian, who wrote articles about the Huns in newspapers, stood at the
Cooney mantel. He did not move at all; the man's gaze upon her
half-averted face did not wink once. His own face, this girl had
thought, was one for strange expressions; but she might have thought the
look it wore now stranger than any she had ever seen there....

"Maybe, it's that way with all women, more or less--only it seems to
have been always more with me.... Money!" said the low hurried
voice--"how I've breathed it in from the first moment I can remember.
Money, money, money!... Has it been altogether my fault if I've measured
everything by it, supposed that it was the other name for
happiness--taken all of it I could get? I've always taken, you
see--never given. I never gave anything to anybody in my life. I never
did anything for anybody in my life. I'm a grown woman--an adult human
being--but I'm not of the slightest use to anybody. I've held out both
hands to life, expecting them to be filled, kept full...."

She paused and was deflected by a fleeting memory, something heard in a
church, perhaps, long ago....

"Isn't there," she asked, "something in the Bible about
that?--horse-leech's daughters--or something?--always crying '_Give,
give_'?..."

There was a perceptible pause.

"Well--something of the sort, I believe...."

She had seemed to have the greatest confidence that, if anything of the
sort was in the Bible, this man would know it instantly. However, his
tone caught her attention, and she raised her eyes. Mr. V.V.'s face
was scarlet.

"I see," said Cally, colorlessly, out of the silence, "you had already
thought of me as one of those daughters.... Why not