by Vincent, by Eugenia, the
fact that there were lives so arranged that other people did all the
drudgery, and left one free to perceive nothing but the beauty and
delicacy of existence. Now, straight at it! With all the knowledge of
herself and of life which she had gathered,--straight at it, to see what
this meant! Did their entire freedom from drudgery give them a keener
sense of the beauty and delicacy of existence? Were they more deeply
alive because of the ease of their lives?

She cast about her for evidence, in a firm, orderly search among the
materials which life had brought to her. Had she seen anything which
could give evidence on that? There was Eugenia; Eugenia and her friends
had always lived that life of rich possessions and well-served ease.
What had it made of them? Was their sense of beauty deeper and more
living because of it? No, not in the least.

She turned her inward eye on Eugenia's life, on the lives of the people
in that circle, in a long searching gaze. Was it deep in eternal values?
Was it made up of a constant recurrence of sensitive aliveness to what
is most worth responding to? Odd, that it did not seem to be! They were
petulant, and bored, and troubled about minute flaws in their ease, far
more than they were deep in communion with beauty.

Another piece of evidence came knocking at the door now, a picture of
quaint and humble homeliness . . . herself standing before the stove with
the roast on a plate, and little Mark saying fastidiously, "Oh, how
nasty raw meat looks!" She recalled her passing impatience with the
childishness of that comment, her passing sense of the puerile ignorance
of the inherent unity of things, in such an attitude of eagerness to
feed on results and unwillingness to take one's share of what leads up
to results. Yes, it was more there, than in looking at Eugenia, that she
could find evidence. Did she want to be of those who sat afar off and
were served with the fine and delicate food of life, and knew nothing of
the unsavory process of preparing it? It had seemed to her this summer,
a thousand times with Vincent's eyes on her, scornful of her present
life, that she did want it, that she wanted that more than anything
else. Now let her look full at it. She was a grown woman now, who could
foresee what it would mean.

She looked full at it, set herself there in her imagination, in the
remote ivory tower and looked out from its carven windows at the rough
world w