“Yours has been the common disappointment of all reformers,” he said gravely. “Gratitude is the rarest tribute the world ever offers to those who have laboured to cleanse it. When you are a little older you will have learnt your lesson. But it is always very hard to learn.... Tell me about to-night!”
She raised her head a little. A faint spot of colour stained her cheek.
“There was one woman who praised me, who came to see me, and sent me cards to go to her house. To-night I went. Foolishly I had hoped a good deal from it! I did not like Lady Truton herself, but I hoped that I should meet other women there who would be different! It was a new experience to me to be going amongst my own sex. I was like a child going to her first party. I was quite excited, almost nervous. I had a little dream,—there would be some women there—one would be enough—with whom I might be friends, and it would make life very different to me to have even one woman friend. But they were all horrid. They were vulgar, and one woman, she took me on one side and praised my book. She agreed, she said, with every word in it! She had found out that her husband had a mistress,—some chorus-girl,—and she was repaying him in his own coin. She too had a lover—and for every infidelity of his she was repaying him in this manner. She dared to assume that I—I should approve of her conduct; she asked me to go and see her! My God! it was hideous.”
Matravers laid his hand upon hers, and leaned forward in his chair.
“Lady Truton’s was the very worst house you could have gone to,” he said gently. “You must not be too discouraged all at once. The women of her set, thank God, are not in the least typical Englishwomen. They are fast and silly,—a few, I am afraid, worse. They make use of the free discussions in these days of the relations between our sexes, to excuse grotesque extravagances in dress and habits which society ought never to pardon. Do not let their judgments or their misinterpretations trouble you! You are as far above them, Berenice, as that little star is from us.”
“I do not pretend to be anything but a woman,” she said, bending her head, “and to stand alone always is very hard.”
“It is very hard for a man! It must be very much harder for a woman. But, Berenice, you would not call yourself absolutely friendless!”
She raised her head for a moment. Her dark eyes were wonderfully soft.
“Who is there that cares?” she murmured.