y means
of lemon-coloured bows. It was different from those dear old talks at
Surbiton, somehow. She sat facing the window, which was open (the night
was so tranquil and warm), and the dim light--for we did not use the
lamp--suited her admirably. She talked in a voice that told you she was
tired, and she seemed inclined to state a case against herself in the
matter of "A Soul Untrammelled." It was such an evening as might live in
a sympathetic memoir, but it was a little dull while it lasted.

"I feel," she said, "that I am to blame. I have Developed. That first
book of mine--I do not go back upon a word of it, mind, but it has been
misunderstood, misapplied."

"It has," said Widgery, trying to look so deeply sympathetic as to be
visible in the dark. "Deliberately misunderstood."

"Don't say that," said the lady. "Not deliberately. I try and think that
critics are honest. After their lights. I was not thinking of critics.
But she--I mean--" She paused, an interrogation.

"It is possible," said Dangle, scrutinising his sticking-plaster.

"I write a book and state a case. I want people to THINK as I recommend,
not to DO as I recommend. It is just Teaching. Only I make it into a
story. I want to Teach new Ideas, new Lessons, to promulgate Ideas. Then
when the Ideas have been spread abroad--Things will come about. Only now
it is madness to fly in the face of the established order. Bernard Shaw,
you know, has explained that with regard to Socialism. We all know that
to earn all you consume is right, and that living on invested capital is
wrong. Only we cannot begin while we are so few. It is Those Others."

"Precisely," said Widgery. "It is Those Others. They must begin first."

"And meanwhile you go on banking--"

"If I didn't, some one else would."

"And I live on Mr. Milton's Lotion while I try to gain a footing in
Literature."

"TRY!" said Phipps. "You HAVE done so." And, "That's different," said
Dangle, at the same time.

"You are so kind to me. But in this matter. Of course Georgina Griffiths
in my book lived alone in a flat in Paris and went to life classes and
had men visitors, but then she was over twenty-one."

"Jessica is only seventeen, and girlish for that," said Dangle.

"It alters everything. That child! It is different with a woman. And
Georgina Griffiths never flaunted her freedom--on a bicycle, in country
places. In this country. Where every one is so particular. Fancy,
SLEEPING away from hom