strange and wonderful places. But otherwise she was
ignorant, beautifully, childishly ignorant--and undismayed.

What was she going to do? Sensitive and responsive to beauty, filled with
artistic impulses, she could neither paint, act, sing, nor write pretty
little stories for the magazines. She had no special gift to develop. To
earn her living in a humdrum way she had no need. She had no high Ibsenite
notions of working out her own individuality. She had no consuming passion
for reforming any section of the universe. She had no mission--that she
knew of--to accomplish. Unlike so many of her sex who yearn to be as men
and go out into the world she had no inner mandate to do anything, no
ambition to be anything. She was simply a great, rich flower, struggling
through the shade to the sunlight, plenty of sunlight, as much sunlight as
the heavens could give her.

The Literary Man from London happened to be returning to town by the train
that carried Zora on the first stage of her pilgrimage. He obtained her
consent to travel up in the same carriage. He asked her to what branch of
human activity she intended to devote herself. She answered that she was
going to lie, anyhow, among the leaves. He rebuked her.

"We ought," said he, "to justify our existence."

She drew herself up and flashed an indignant glance at him.

"I beg your pardon," he apologized. "You do justify yours."

"How?"

"You decorate the world. I was wrong. That is the true function of a
beautiful woman, and you fulfill it."

"I have in my bag," replied Zora slowly, and looking at him steady-eyed, "a
preventive against sea-sickness; I have a waterproof to shelter me from
rain; but what can I do to shield myself against silly compliments?"

"Adopt the costume of the ladies of the Orient," said the Literary Man from
London, unabashed.

She laughed, although she detested him. He bent forward with humorous
earnestness. He had written some novels, and now edited a weekly of
precious tendencies and cynical flavor.

"I am a battered old man of thirty-five," said he, "and I know what I am
talking about. If you think you are going to wander at a loose end about
Europe without men paying you compliments and falling in love with you and
making themselves generally delightful, you're traveling under a grievous
hallucination."

"What you say," retorted Zora, "confirms me in my opinion that men are an
abominable nuisance. Why can't they let a poor woman go ab