in the wrong cage, impotently beating its
breast against the bars--Sheila was like enough to such an one in that
furious, unconsciously helpless hour.

By the next day, however, the fierce whirlwind of her astounded
resentment had passed. She began to see that Ted might be the victim
of his sex as she was the victim of hers; that the real tyranny was not
that of Ted over her, but of Nature over them both; of Nature who would
use them each with equal ruthlessness for her own purposes. But this
perception did not daunt her. Unhesitatingly, she arrayed herself
against Nature now; she would save her dreams even from that! And as
Ted was a part of Nature's plan, she said nothing to him of her
determination to fulfill herself in spite of it.

In the afternoon she set out resolutely for Charlotte's. It was
summer, and Shadyville was at its fairest. As Sheila trod the wide,
tree-canopied streets, with their old-fashioned houses in fragrant
garden closes on either side, a hundred tiny voices whispered to her
messages of peace; of life that goes on from summer to summer; of
growth, in the dark and choking earth, that springs at last upward to
the sun. But she did not hear. For her there was neither comfort nor
peace nor any joy in the processes and victories of mere life.

When she reached the Davis house, Charlotte and Mrs. North were on the
veranda, clad brightly in a summer frivolity, and their air of leisure
and gayety was oddly unlike the tense and passionate mood of Sheila
herself. In fact the whole scene--the porch with its fluttering
awnings and festive flowers, the dainty tea-table that already awaited
the guest, the two charming women presiding there--seemed far removed
from the grave resolve and stormy emotions that Sheila had brought
thither. For an instant, as she paused at the gate, she felt herself
absurd. She had come to have afternoon tea with two women who were
obviously of the big, conventional world--and she had brought her naked
soul to them! Acutely self-conscious, painfully humiliated, she would
have retreated if she could, but Charlotte was already hailing her.
And then--her hand was clasped in Alice North's, her eyes were meeting
eyes at once so probing and so luminous that they opened every door of
her nature and flooded it with light.

Sheila had never had a case of hero-worship, but as she put her hand in
Mrs. North's, she fell, figuratively, upon her knees. The very
buoyancy and assu