Valeria was impatient of difficulties. It was not necessary that a woman should leave her home in order to be true to her conscience. It was the best method in Caterina’s case, but not in all.
Miss Du Prel did not explain very clearly what she meant. Women made too much of difficulties, she thought. Somehow people had managed to overcome obstacles. Look at—and then followed a list of shining examples.
“I believe you would blame a modern woman who imitated them,” said Mrs. Temperley. “These women have the inestimable advantage of being dead.”
“Ah, yes,” Lady Engleton agreed, with a laugh, “we women may be anything we like—in the last century.”
“The tides of a hundred years or so sweeping over one’s audacious deed, soften the raw edges. Then it is tolerated in the landscape; indeed, it grows mossy and picturesque.” Mrs. Temperley made this comparison.
“And then think how useful it becomes to prove that a daring deed can be done, given only the necessary stuff in brain and heart.”
Mrs. Walker looked at Algitha in dismay.
“One can throw it in the teeth of one’s contemporaries,” added Algitha, “if they fail to produce a dramatic climax of the same kind.”
“Only,” said Mrs. Temperley, “if they do venture upon their own dreadful deed—the deed demanded by their particular modern predicament—then we all shriek vigorously.”
“Oh, we shriek less than we used to,” said Lady Engleton. “It is quite a relief to be able to retain one’s respectability on easier terms.”