ten uttered thus, sentences which bore the signet of her strong
understanding, for they passed through the stimulated faculties of the
artist, engrossed in her particular expression. Thus the same
intelligence which colored her work, distinguished her sayings....
Bedient daily astonished her. Again and again, she perceived that he
had come to New York, full of power from his silences apart. She wanted
him to preserve his freshness of vision. His quiet expressions thrilled
her.

"The women I know, married or unmarried, are nearly all unhappy," she
said, one day. "My younger friends, even among girls, are afraid. They
see that men are blinded by things they can taste and see and
touch--speed, noise and show. The married women are restless and
terrified by spiritual loneliness. The younger women see it and are
afraid."

"'Had I but two loaves of bread, I should sell one to buy white
hyacinths,'" Bedient quoted; "I like to think of that line of
Mahomet's.... Women are ready for white hyacinths--the bread of
life.... But this spiritual loneliness is a wonderful sign. The spirit
floods in where it can--where it is sought after--and the children of
women who are hungry for spiritual things, are children of dreams. They
must be. They may not be happy, but they will feel a stronger yearning
to go out alone and find 'the white presences among the hills.'"

Beth was silent.

"Yearning is religion," Bedient added. "Hunger of the heart for higher
things will bring spiritual expansion. Look at the better-born children
to-day. I mean those who do not have _every_ chance against them. I
seem to catch a new tone in the murmur of this rousing generation. They
have an expanded consciousness. It is the spiritual yearnings of
motherhood."

"But what of the woman who will not take the bowl of porridge that
ordinary man gives her?" Beth demanded. "So many women dare
not--cannot--and then their dreams, their best, are not reflected in
the consciousness of the new race."

Bedient smiled, and Beth regarded her work intently, for an echo of the
confessional had come back to her from her own words.

"That is a matter so intensely individual," he replied. "We are at the
beginning of the woman's era, and with every transition there are pangs
to be suffered by those who are great enough. These great ones are
especially prepared to see how terrible is their denial from the
highest privileges of woman. And yet they may be spiritual mothers,
c