Maraton replaced the letters in their envelopes and turned with them in his hand, towards Julia.  She had moved a little towards the open French windows.  Every one seemed to have made their way out on to the lawn.  Chinese lanterns were hanging from some of the trees and along the straight box hedge that led to the rose gardens.  The women were strolling about in their evening gowns, without wraps or covering, and the men had joined them.  Servants were passing coffee around, served from a table on which stood a little row of bottles, filled with various liqueurs.  Some one in the drawing-room was singing, but the voice was suddenly silenced.  Every one turned their heads.  A little further back in the woods, a nightingale had commenced to sing.

“You are tired,” Maraton whispered.

She shook her head.  The strained, anxious look was still in her face.

“No,” she replied in a low tone, “I am not tired.”

“There is something the matter,” he insisted, “something, I am sure.  Won’t you sit down, and may I not order some refreshment for you?  The people here are very hospitable.”

Her gesture of dissent was almost peremptory.

“No!”

The monosyllable had a sting which surprised him.

“Tell me what it is?” he begged.

She opened her lips and closed them again.  He saw then the rising and falling of her bosom underneath that black stuff gown.  She stretched out her hand towards the gardens.  Somehow or other, she seemed to grow taller.

“I do not understand this,” she said.  “I do not understand your being here, one of them, dressed like them, speaking their language, sharing their luxuries.  It is a great blow to me.  It is perhaps because I am foolish, but it tortures me!”

“But isn’t that a little unreasonable?” he asked her quietly.  “To accomplish anything in this world, it is necessary to know more than one side of life.”

“But this—­this,” she cried hysterically, “is the side which has made our blood boil for generations!  These women in silk and laces, these idle, pleasure-loving men, this eating and drinking, this luxury in beautiful surroundings, with ears deafened to all the mad, sobbing cries of the world!  This is their life day by day.  You have been in the wilderness, you have seen the life of those others, you have the feeling for them in your heart.  Can you sit at table with these people and wear their clothes, and not feel like a hypocrite?”

“I assure you,” Maraton replied, “that I can.”

She was trembling slightly.  She had never seemed to him so tall.  Her eyes now were ablaze.  She had indeed the air of a prophetess.

“They are ignorant men, they who sent you that letter,” she continued, pointing to it, “but they have the truth.  Do you know what they are saying?”

Maraton inclined his head gravely.  He felt that he knew very well what they were saying.  She did not give him time, however, to interrupt.