said Mildred confidently. "Why, I've nothing else to do,
and no other hope."

Mrs. Brindley's smile had a certain sadness in it. She said:

"It's the biggest if in all this world."

V

AT Mrs. Belloc's a telephone message from Jennings was awaiting her; he
would call at a quarter-past eight and would detain Miss Stevens only a
moment. And at eight fifteen exactly he rang the bell. This time
Mildred was prepared; she refused to be disconcerted by his abrupt
manner and by his long sharp nose that seemed to warn away, to threaten
away, even to thrust away any glance seeking to investigate the rest of
his face or his personality. She looked at him candidly, calmly, and
seeingly. Seeingly. With eyes that saw as they had never seen before.
Perhaps from the death of her father, certainly from the beginning of
Siddall's courtship, Mildred had been waking up. There is a part of
our nature--the active and aggressive part--that sleeps all our lives
long or becomes atrophied if we lead lives of ease and secure
dependence. It is the important part of us, too--the part that
determines character. The thing that completed the awakening of
Mildred was her acquaintance with Mrs. Belloc. That positive and
finely-poised lady fascinated her, influenced her powerfully--gave her
just what she needed at the particular moment. The vital moments in
life are not the crises over which shallow people linger, but are the
moments where we met and absorbed the ideas that enabled us to weather
these crises. The acquaintance with Mrs. Belloc was one of those vital
moments; for, Mrs. Belloc's personality--her look and manner, what she
said and the way she said it--was a proffer to Mildred of invaluable
lessons which her awakening character eagerly absorbed. She saw
Jennings as he was. She decided that he was of common origin, that his
vanity was colossal and aquiver throughout with sensitiveness; that he
belonged to the familiar type of New-Yorker who succeeds by bluffing.
Also, she saw or felt a certain sexlessness or indifference to sex--and
this she later understood. Men whose occupation compels them
constantly to deal with women go to one extreme or the other--either
become acutely sensitive to women as women or become utterly
indifferent, unless their highly discriminated taste is appealed
to--which cannot happen often. Jennings, teaching only women because
only women spending money they had not earned and could not earn woul