staste, and wondered if she were
reverting to type as a result of this recent association with the
generation that still clung to the distastes and the disclaimers of the
nineteenth century. "Why didn't you marry when you were a girl? I am
told that you were quite lovely."

"I hated the thought. I was in love twice; but I had a sort of cold
purity that I was proud of. The bare idea of--of _that_ nauseated me."

"Pity you hadn't done settlement work first. That must have knocked
prudishness out of you, I should think."

"It horrified me so that for several years I hardly could go on with
it, and I have always refused to mix the sexes in my house down there,
but, of course, I could not help hearing things--seeing things--and
after a while I did get hardened--and ceased to be revolted. I learned
to look upon all that sort of thing as a matter of course. But it was
too late then. I had lost what little looks I had ever possessed. I
grew to look like an old maid long before I was thirty. Why is nature
so cruel, Mary?"

"I fancy a good many American women develop very slowly sexually. You
were merely one of them. I wonder you had the climacteric so early.
But nature is very fond of taking her little revenges. You defied her
and she smote you."

"Oh, yes, she smote me! But I never fully realized it until you came."

"I hardly follow you."

"Oh, don't you see? You have shown us that women can begin life over
again, undo their awful mistakes. And yet I don't dare--don't dare----"

"Why not, pray? Better come with me to Vienna if you haven't the
courage to face the music here."

"Oh, I haven't the courage. I couldn't carry things off with such a
high hand as you do. You were always high and mighty, they say, and
have done as you pleased all your life. You don't care a pin whether
we approve of what you've done or not. It's the way you're made. But
I--couldn't stand it. The admission of vanity, of--of--after the life
I've led. The young women would say, in their nasty slang, that I was
probably man-crazy."

"And aren't you?" asked Mary coolly. "Isn't that just what is the
matter? The sex-imagination often outlives the withering of the
sex-glands. Come now, admit it. Forget that you are a pastel-tinted
remnant of the old order and call a spade a spade."

"There's something terrifying about you, Mary." Miss Trevor had
flushed a dark purple, but she had very honest eyes, and they did not
fal