le. Wretched at
home, a woman ought to bury herself in her wretchedness, else may she be
assured that not the cleverest, wariest guard will cover her character.

Against the husband her cause was triumphant. Against herself she
decided not to plead it, for this reason, that the preceding Court,
which was the public and only positive one, had entirely and justly
exonerated her. But the holding of her hand by the friend half a minute
too long for friendship, and the over-friendliness of looks, letters,
frequency of visits, would speak within her. She had a darting view of
her husband's estimation of them in his present mood. She quenched it;
they were trifles, things that women of the world have to combat. The
revelation to a fair-minded young woman of the majority of men being
naught other than men, and some of the friendliest of men betraying
confidence under the excuse of temptation, is one of the shocks to
simplicity which leave her the alternative of misanthropy or philosophy.
Diana had not the heart to hate her kind, so she resigned herself
to pardon, and to the recognition of the state of duel between the
sexes-active enough in her sphere of society. The circle hummed with
it; many lived for it. Could she pretend to ignore it? Her personal
experience might have instigated a less clear and less intrepid nature
to take advantage of the opportunity for playing the popular innocent,
who runs about with astonished eyes to find herself in so hunting a
world, and wins general compassion, if not shelter in unsuspected
and unlicenced places. There is perpetually the inducement to act the
hypocrite before the hypocrite world, unless a woman submits to be the
humbly knitting housewife, unquestioningly worshipful of her lord; for
the world is ever gracious to an hypocrisy that pays homage to the
mask of virtue by copying it; the world is hostile to the face of an
innocence not conventionally simpering and quite surprised; the world
prefers decorum to honesty. 'Let me be myself, whatever the martyrdom!'
she cried, in that phase of young sensation when, to the blooming woman;
the putting on of a mask appears to wither her and reduce her to the
show she parades. Yet, in common with her sisterhood, she owned she had
worn a sort of mask; the world demands it of them as the price of their
station. That she had never worn it consentingly, was the plea for
now casting it off altogether, showing herself as she was, accepting
martyrdom,