Mrs. Sardis was nervous, and this condition, so singular in Mrs. Sardis, naturally made me curious as to the cause of it.  But my eyes still furtively wandered to the door.

‘My dear co-worker,’ she began, and hesitated.

‘Yes,’ I encouraged her.

She put her matron’s lips together: 

’You know how proud I am of your calling, and how jealous I am of its honour and its good name, and what a great mission I think we novelists have in the work of regenerating the world.’

I nodded.  That kind of eloquence always makes me mute.  It leaves nothing to be said.

‘I wonder,’ Mrs. Sardis continued, ’if you have ever realized what a power you are in England and America to-day.’

‘Power!’ I echoed.  ’I have done nothing but try to write as honestly and as well as I could what I felt I wanted to write.’

‘No one can doubt your sincerity, my dear friend,’ Mrs. Sardis said.  ’And I needn’t tell you that I am a warm admirer of your talent, and that I rejoice in your success.  But the tendency of your work—­’

‘Surely,’ I interrupted her coldly, ’you are not taking the trouble to tell me that my books are doing harm to the great and righteous Anglo-Saxon public!’

‘Do not let us poke fun at our public, my dear,’ she protested.  ’I personally do not believe that your books are harmful, though their originality is certainly daring, and their realism startling; but there exists a considerable body of opinion, as you know, that strongly objects to your books.  It may be reactionary opinion, bigoted opinion, ignorant opinion, what you like, but it exists, and it is not afraid to employ the word “immoral."’

‘What, then?’

’I speak as one old enough to be your mother, and I speak after all to a motherless young girl who happens to have genius with, perhaps, some of the disadvantages of genius, when I urge you so to arrange your personal life that this body of quite respectable adverse opinion shall not find in it a handle to use against the fair fame of our calling.’

‘Mrs. Sardis!’ I cried.  ‘What do you mean?’

I felt my nostrils dilate in anger as I gazed, astounded, at this incarnation of mediocrity who had dared to affront me on my own hearth; and by virtue of my youth and my beauty, and all the homage I had received, and the clear sincerity of my vision of life, I despised and detested the mother of a family who had never taken one step beyond the conventions in which she was born.  Had she not even the wit to perceive that I was accustomed to be addressed as queens are addressed?...  Then, as suddenly as it had flamed, my anger cooled, for I could see the painful earnestness in her face.  And Mrs. Sardis and I—­what were we but two groups of vital instincts, groping our respective ways out of one mystery into another?  Had we made ourselves?  Had we chosen our characters?  Mrs. Sardis was fulfilling herself, as I was.  She was a natural force, as I was.  As well be angry with a hurricane, or the heat of the sun.