in time, to have crushed it for Elfrida, though it did
seem that it would be more easily done for a stranger,
somebody she wouldn't have to know afterward. But if
Elfrida didn't care, as a matter of principle Janet was
unable to see the least harm in making her say so as
often as possible. They were talking together in Mr.
Cardiff's library late one June afternoon, when it seemed
to Janet that the crisis came, that she could never again
speak of such matters to Elfrida without betraying herself.
Things were growing dim about the room, the trees stood
in dusky groups in the square outside. There was the
white glimmer of the tea-things between them, and just
light enough to define the shadows round the other girl's
face, and write upon it the difference it bore, in Janet's
eyes, to every other face.

"Oh!" Elfrida was saying, "it does make life more
interesting, I admit--up to a certain point. And I
suppose it's to be condoned from the point of view of
the species. Whoever started us, and wants us to go on,
excuses marriage, I suppose. And of course the men are
not affected by it. But for women, it is degrading
--horrible. Especially for women like you and me, to whom
life may mean something else. Fancy being the author of
babies when one could be the author of books! _Don't_
tell me you'd rather!"

"I!" said Janet "Oh, I'm out of it. But I approve the
principle."

"Besides, the commonplaceness, the eternal routine, the
being tied together, the--the domestic virtues! It must
be death, absolute death, to any fineness of nature. No,"
Elfrida went on decisively, "people with anything in them
that is worth saving may love as much as they feel
disposed, but they ought to keep their freedom. And some
of them do nowadays."

"Do you mean," said Janet slowly, "that they dispense
with the ceremony?"

"They dispense with the condition. They--they don't go
so far."

"I thought you didn't believe in Platonics," Janet
answered, with wilful misunderstanding.

"You know I don't believe in them. Any more," Elfrida
added lightly, "than I believe in this exaltation you
impute to the race of a passion it shares with--with the
mollusks. It's pure self-flattery."

There was a moment's silence. Elfrida clasped her hands
behind her head and turned her face toward the window so
that all the light that came through softly gathered in
it. Janet felt the girl's beauty as if it were a burden,
pressing with literal physical weight