“Hadria has, I believe, at the bottom of her heart, a lurking desire to hurt men, because they have hurt women so terribly,” said Algitha.
“One can understand the impulse, but the worst of it is, that one is certain to pay back the score on the good man, and let the other go free.”
Algitha shook her head, regretfully.
“Did Hadria never show this impulse before?”
“Never in my life have I seen her exercise her power so ruthlessly.”
“I rather think she is wise after all,” said Miss Du Prel reflectively. “She might be sorry some day never to have tasted what she is tasting now.”
“But it seems to me dreadful. There is not a man who is not influenced by her in the strangest manner; even poor Joseph Fleming, who used to look up to her so. In my opinion, she is acting very wrongly.”
“‘He that has eaten his fill does not pity the hungry,’ as the Eastern proverb puts it. Come now, Algitha, imagine yourself to be cut off from the work that supremely interests you, and thrown upon Craddock Dene without hope of respite, for the rest of your days. Don’t you think you too might be tempted to try experiments with a power whose strength you had found to be almost irresistible?”
“Perhaps I should,” Algitha admitted.
“I don’t say she is doing right, but you must remember that you have not the temperament that prompts to these outbursts. I suppose that is only to say that you are better than Hadria, by nature. I think perhaps you are, but remember you have had the life and the work that you chose above all others—she has not.”