“Oh, it is only the moonlight that has got into my head,” she said, flinging back the cloudy black hair from her brow.
Algitha’s firm, clear voice vibrated through the room.
“But I think it matters very much whether one’s task is done well or ill,” she said, “and nobody has taught me to wish to make solid use of my life so much as you have, Hadria. What possesses you to-night?”
“I tell you, the moonlight.”
“And something else.”
“Well, it struck me, as I stood there with my head full of what we have been discussing, that the conditions of a girl’s life of our own class are pleasant enough, but they are stifling, absolutely stifling; and not all the Emersons in the world will convince me to the contrary. Emerson never was a girl!”
There was a laugh.
“No; but he was a great man,” said Ernest.
“Then he must have had something of the girl in him!” cried Hadria.
“I didn’t mean that, but perhaps it is true.”