“I shall see.  Have you read this?”

It was a novel from Smith’s Library.  Lilian knew it, and they discussed its merits.  Mrs. Wade mentioned a book by the same author which had appeared more than a year ago.

“Yes, I read that when it came out,” said Lilian, and began to talk of it.

Mrs. Wade kept silence, then remarked carelessly: 

“You had them in the Tauchnitz series, I suppose?”

Had her eyes been turned that way, she must have observed the strange look which flashed across her companion’s countenance.  Lilian seemed to draw in her breath, though silently.

“Yes—­Tauchnitz,” she answered.

Mrs. Wade appeared quite unconscious of anything unusual in the tone.  She was gazing at the fire.

“It isn’t often I find time for novels,” she said; “for new ones, that is.  A few of the old are generally all I need.  Can you read George Eliot?  What a miserably conventional soul that woman has!”

“Conventional?  But”——­

“Oh, I know!  But she is British conventionality to the core.  I have heard people say that she hasn’t the courage of her opinions; but that is precisely what she has, and every page of her work declares it flagrantly.  She might have been a great power—­she might have speeded the revolution of morals—­if the true faith had been in her.”

Lilian was still tremulous, and she listened with an intensity which gave her a look of pain.  She was about to speak, but Mrs. Wade anticipated her.

“You mustn’t trouble much about anything I say when it crosses your own judgment or feeling.  There are so few people with whom I can indulge myself in free speech.  I talk just for the pleasure of it; don’t think I expect or hope that you will always go along with me.  But you are not afraid of thinking—­that’s the great thing.  Most women are such paltry creatures that they daren’t look into their own minds—­for fear nature should have put something ‘improper’ there.”

She broke off with laughter, and, as Lilian kept silence, fell into thought.

In saying that she thought her Companion a “womanly woman,” Lilian told the truth.  Ever quick with sympathy, she felt a sadness in Mrs. Wade’s situation, which led her to interpret all her harsher peculiarities as the result of disappointment and loneliness.  Now that the widow had confessed her ill-fortune in marriage, Lilian was assured of having judged rightly, and nursed her sentiment of compassion.  Mrs. Wade was still young; impossible that she should have accepted a fate which forbade her the knowledge of woman’s happiness.  But how difficult for such a one to escape from this narrow and misleading way!  Her strong, highly-trained intellect could find no satisfaction in the society of every-day people, yet she was withheld by poverty from seeking her natural sphere.  With Lilian, to understand a sorrow was to ask herself what she could do for its assuagement.  A thought of characteristic generosity came to her.  Why should she not (some day or other, when their friendship was mature) offer Mrs. Wade the money, her own property, which would henceforth be lying idle?  There would be practical difficulties in the way, but surely they might be overcome.  The idea brought a smile to her face.  Yes; she would think of this.  She would presently talk of it with Denzil.