"A sister who dances at the Wintergarten----"

"Did I not tell you that she has no sister?"

Axel shrugged his shoulders. "The resemblance is so striking that they
might be twins," he said.

"Then you think she says what is not true?"

"How can I tell?"

Anna stopped again and faced him. "Well, suppose it were true--suppose
it is her sister, and she has tried to hide it--do you know how I should
feel about it?"

"Properly scandalised, I hope."

"I should love her all the more. Oh, I should love her twice as much!
Why, think of the misery and the shame--poor, poor little woman--trying
to hide it all, bearing it all by herself--she must have loved her
sister, she must have loved her brother. It isn't true, of course, but
supposing it were, could you tell me _any_ reason why I should turn my
back on her?"

She stood looking at him, her eyes full of angry tears.

He did not answer. If that was the way she felt, what could he do?

"I never understood," she went on passionately, "why the innocent should
be punished. Do you suppose a woman would _like_ her brother to cheat
and then shoot himself? Or _like_ her sister to go and dance? But if
they do do these things, besides her own grief and horror, she is to be
shunned by everybody as though she were infectious. Is that fair? Is
that right? Is it in the least Christian?"

"No, of course it is not. It is very hard and very ugly, but it is quite
natural. An old woman in a strong position might take such a person up,
perhaps, and comfort her and love her as you propose to do, but a young
girl ought not to do anything of the sort."

Anna turned away with a quick movement of impatience and walked on. "If
you argue on the young girl basis," she said, "we shall never be able to
talk about a single thing. When will you leave off about my young
girlishness? In five years I shall be thirty--will you go on till I have
reached that blessed age?"

"I have no right to go on to you about anything," said Axel.

"Precisely," said Anna.

"But please remember that I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to your
uncle, and make allowances for me if I am over-zealous in my anxiety to
shield his niece from possible unpleasantness."

"Then don't keep telling me I am too young to do good. It is ludicrous,
considering my age, besides being dreadful. You will say that, I
believe, till I am thirty or forty, and then when you can't decently say
it any more, and I still want to do things,