tefully decorated, is to me only the more
repulsive," returned Hadria, with suppressed passion.

"There will come a day when you will feel very differently," prophesied
Miss Du Prel.

"Perhaps. Why should I, more than the others, remain uninfluenced by the
usual processes of blunting, and grinding down, and stupefying, till one
grows accustomed to one's function, one's _intolerable_ function?"

"My dear, my dear!"

"I am sorry if I shock you, but that is how I feel. I have seen this
sort of traditional existence and nothing else, all my life, and I have
been brought up to it, with the rest--prepared and decked out like some
animal for market--all in the most refined and graceful manner possible;
but how can one help seeing through the disguise; how can one be blind
to the real nature of the transaction, and to the fate that awaits
one--awaits one as inexorably as death, unless by some force of one's
own, with all the world--friends and enemies--in opposition, one can
avert it?"

Miss Du Prel remained silent.

"You _can_ avert it," she said at last; "but at what cost?"

"Miss Du Prel, I would rather sweep a crossing, I would rather beg in
the streets, than submit to the indignity of such a life!"

"Then what do you intend to do instead?"

"Ah! there's the difficulty. What _can_ one do instead, without breaking
somebody's heart? Nothing, except breaking one's own. And even putting
that difficulty aside, it seems as if everyone's hand were against a
woman who refuses the path that has been marked out for her."

"No, no, it is not so bad as that. There are many openings now for
women."

"But," said Hadria, "as far as I can gather, ordinary ability is not
sufficient to enable them to make a scanty living. The talent that would
take a man to the top of the tree is required to keep a woman in a
meagre supply of bread and butter."

"Allowing for exaggeration, that is more or less the case," Miss Du Prel
admitted.

"I have revolted against the common lot," she went on after a pause,
"and you see what comes of it; I am alone in the world. One does not
think of that when one is quite young."

"Would you rather be in Mrs. Gordon's position than in your own?"

"I doubt not that she is happier."

"But would you change with her, surrendering all that she has
surrendered?"

"Yes, if I were of her temperament."

"Ah! you always evade the question. Remaining yourself, would you change
with her?"

"I would never