"Those are the zealots and the exaggerators," smiles Lady Etwynde amusedly. "They have spoilt much by carrying into extremes what is only tolerable in moderation; by dragging in without warning what really requires delicate and gradual preparation."
"I am glad that you are only moderate then," says her companion. "Some one once said that there was a sphinx in our souls who was perpetually asking us riddles. I confess I thought there was one in mine when I met you to-night under such changed auspices."
"And what was the riddle?" asks Lady Etwynde.
He bends a little closer. "The reason, of course! You told me a few moments ago that when a woman's life was empty she must do something to fill up the void. Was yours so empty?"
It is a bold question; he wonders he has dared ask it. She turns pale with—anger. Of course it is anger, and her eyes are flashing under their long lashes, and words won't come because her heart is hot and indignant. So he interprets her silence and murmurs apologetically: "Forgive me; I had no right to make such a remark; only, I have been such a miserable man since you sent me from your side, that it seemed in some way to console me that you had not been quite—happy, either."
"I suppose no one is that," she says, with a suspicious tremor in her voice. "Something, or some one, is sure to spoil our lives for us."
He draws back. The shaft has hit home. He remembers only too well who has spoilt the life of this woman beside him.
"Society is too artificial to content me," she goes on rapidly. "I want something more than amusement. I like to think. I like rational conversation. I like art, little as I can study or understand its great teachings. I like all that elevates the mind, and is beautiful to the senses; so I plunged headlong into the new school, and it has interested and occupied me. Do not suppose I consider it perfect by any means; but it has done much good—it will do more. If you were interested in such things you might remember the glaring colours, the brilliant hues that made one's eyes ache not so very long ago. Look what lovely shades and tints we have now. Women required to be educated to some sense of colour and fitness. However plain or insignificant we may be, we may at least make our defects less oppressive by taste and culture."
"There I quite agree with you," says Colonel Carlisle, wondering a little how she manages always to evade personal topics and glide back to the keynote of their conversation. "But you lack neither taste nor culture; your words apply to quite a different class of persons. And if æsthetics teach taste and appreciation of all that is beautiful and cultured, why, in Heaven's name, do these people make such guys of themselves?"
"I have told you twice already that every creed has its exaggerators."