ed that she had none. Not even the thought of her work--usually a
talisman against depression--had any power to comfort. Who cared for her
work, unless she perjured herself, and told the lies that the public
loved to hear?

"What should we all do," asked Hadria, "if there were not a few people
like you and Professor Fortescue, in the world, to keep us true to our
best selves, and to point to something infinitely better than that
best?"

Miss Du Prel brightened for a moment.

"What does it matter if you do not provide mental food for the crowd,
seeking nourishment for their vulgarity? Let them go starve."

"But they don't; they go and gorge elsewhere. Besides, the question of
starvation faces _me_ rather than them."

Miss Du Prel was still disposed to find fault with the general scheme of
things, which she regarded as responsible for her own woes, great and
little. Survival of the fittest! What was that but another name for the
torture and massacre of the unfit? Nature's favourite instruments were
war, slaughter, famine, misery (mental and physical), sacrifice and
brutality in every form, with a special malignity in her treatment of
the most highly developed and the noblest of the race.

The Professor in vain pointed out that Valeria's own revolt against the
brutality of Nature, was proof of some higher law in Nature, now in
course of development.

"The horror that is inspired in human beings by that brutality is just
as much a part of Nature as the brutality itself," he said, and he
insisted that the supreme business of man, was to evolve a scheme of
life on a higher plane, wherein the weak shall not be forced to agonize
for the strong, so far as mankind can intervene to prevent it. Let man
follow the dictates of pity and generosity in his own soul. They would
never lead him astray. While Miss Du Prel laid the whole blame upon
natural law, the Professor impeached humanity. Men, he declared, cry out
against the order of things, which they, in a large measure, have
themselves created.

"But, good heavens! the whole plan of life is one of rapine. _We_ did
not fashion the spider to prey upon the fly, or the cat to play with the
wounded mouse. _We_ did not ordain that the strong should fall upon the
weak, and tear and torture them for their own benefit. Surely we are not
responsible for the brutalities of the animal creation."

"No, but we are responsible when we _imitate them_," said the Professor.

Miss Du Prel