s that you did not
marry a woman capable of understanding you."

Dyce stood up and took a few steps about the floor, his eyes fixed on
the marble bust.

"When can I see you again?" he asked abruptly.

"I shall be going to London in a day or two; I don't think we will meet
again--until your circumstances are better. Can you give me any idea of
what the election expenses will be?"

"Not yet," Dyce answered, in an undertone. "You are going to London?
Will you tell me what you mean to do?"

"To pursue my career."

"Your career?"

"That surprises you, of course. It never occurred to you that I also
might have a career in view. Yet I have. Let us enter upon a friendly
competition. Five years hence, which of us will be better known?"

"I see," remarked Dyce, his lip curling. "You will use your money to
make yourself talked about?"

"Not primarily; but it is very likely that that will result from my
work. It offends your sense of what is becoming in a woman?"

"It throws light upon what you have been saying."

"So I meant. You will see, when you think about it, that I am acting
strangely like a male creature. We females with minds have a way of
doing that. I'll say more, for I really want you to understand me. 'The
sudden possession of wealth' has not, as you suppose, turned my head,
but it has given my thoughts a most salutary shaking, and made me feel
twice the woman that I was. At this moment, I should as soon think of
taking a place as kitchen-maid as of becoming any man's wife. I am
free, and have power to assert myself--the first desire, let me assure
you, of modern woman no less than of modern man. That I shall assert
myself for the good of others is a peculiarity of mine, a result of my
special abilities; I take no credit for it. Some day we shall meet
again, and talk over our experiences; for the present, let us be
content with corresponding now and then. You shall have my address as
soon as I am settled."

She rose, and Lashmar gazed at her. He saw that she was as little to be
moved by an appeal, by an argument, as the marble bust behind her.

"I suppose," he said, "you will appear on platforms?"

"Oh dear no!" Constance replied, with a laugh. "My ambition doesn't
take that form. I leave that to you, who are much more eloquent."

"How you have altered!" He kept gazing at her, with a certain awe. "I
hardly know you."

"I doubt whether you know me at all. Never mind." She held out her
hand. "We may