“This minute,” said the lady, and gave the married lovers to understand that the interview was at an end.

Marna went weeping down the street, holding on to her George’s arm.

“If she’d been Irish, she’d have cursed me,” she sobbed, “and then I’d have had something to go on, so to speak.  Perhaps I could have got her to take it off me in time.  But what are you going to do with a snubbing like that?”

“Oh, leave it for the Arctic explorers to explain.  They’re used to being in below-zero temperature,” George said with a troubled laugh.  “I’m sure I can’t waste any time thinking about a woman who could stand out against you, Marna, the way you are this day, and the way you’re looking.”

“But, George, she thinks I’m a monster.”

“Then there’s something wrong with her zoology.  You’re an—­”

“Don’t call me an angel, dear, whatever you do!  There are some things I hate to be called—­they’re so insipid.  If any one called me an angel I’d know he didn’t appreciate me.  Come, let’s go to Kate’s.  She’s my court of last appeal.  If Kate can’t forgive me, I’ll know I’ve done wrong.”

* * * * *

Kate was never to forget that night.  She had come in from a day of difficult and sordid work.  For once, the purpose back of all her toil among the people there in the great mill town was lost sight of in the sheer repulsiveness of the tasks she had had to perform.  The pathos of their temptations, the terrific disadvantages under which they labored, their gray tragedies, had some way lost their import.  She was merely a dreadfully fagged woman, disgusted with evil, with dirt and poverty.  She was at outs with her world and impatient with the suffering involved in the mere living of life.

Moreover, when she had come into the house, she had found it dark as usual.  The furnace was down, and her own room was cold.  But she had set her teeth together, determined not to give way to depression, and had made her rather severe toilet for dinner when word was brought to her by the children’s nurse that Dr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald desired to see her.  For a moment she could not comprehend what that might mean; then the truth assailed her, took her by the hand, and ran her down the stairs into Mama’s arms.

“But it’s outrageous,” she cried, hugging Marna to her.  “How could you be so willful?”

“It’s glorious,” retorted Marna.  “And if I ever was going to be willful, now’s the time.”

“Right you are,” broke in George.  “What does Stevenson say about that?  ‘Youth is the time to be up and doing.’  You’re not going to be severe with us, Miss Barrington?  We’ve been counting on you.”

“Have you?” inquired Kate, putting Marna aside and taking her husband by the hand.  “Well, you are your own justification, you two.  But haven’t you been ungrateful?”

Marna startled her by a bit of Dionysian philosophy.