She cried in her bosom:  I feel!  She had no other expression for that which is as near as great natures may come to the conceiving of the celestial spirit from an emissary angel; and she trembled, the fire ran through her.  It seemed to her, that she would be called to help or that certainly they were nearing to an effacement of the woefullest of evils; and if not helping, it would still be a blessedness for her to kneel thanking heaven.

Society was being attacked and defended.  She could but studiously listen.  Her father was listening.  The assailant was a lady; and she had a hearing, although she treated Society as a discrowned monarch on trial for an offence against a more precious:  viz., the individual cramped by brutish laws:  the individual with the ideas of our time, righteously claiming expansion out of the clutches of a narrow old-world disciplinarian-that giant hypocrite!  She flung the gauntlet at externally venerable Institutions; and she had a hearing, where horrification, execration, the foul Furies of Conservatism would in a shortly antecedent day have been hissing and snakily lashing, hounding her to expulsion.  Mrs. Marina Floyer gravely seconded her.  Colney did the same.  Victor turned sharp on him.  ‘Yes,’ Colney said; ’we unfold the standard of extremes in this country, to get a single step taken:  that’s how we move:  we threaten death to get footway.  Now, mark:  Society’s errors will be admitted.’

A gentleman spoke.  He began by admitting Society’s errors.  Nevertheless, it so distinctly exists for the common good, that we may say of Society in relation to the individual, it is the body to the soul.  We may wash, trim, purify, but we must not maim it.  The assertion of our individuality in opposition to the Government of Society—­this existing Society—­is a toss of the cap for the erasure of our civilization, et caetera.

Platitudes can be of intense interest if they approach our case.—­But, if you please, we ask permission to wash, trim, purify, and we do not get it.—­But you have it!  Because we take it at our peril; and you, who are too cowardly to grant or withhold, call-up the revolutionary from the pits by your slackness:—­etc.  There was a pretty hot debate.  Both assailant and defendant, to Victor’s thinking, spoke well, and each the right thing and he could have made use of both, but he could answer neither.  He beat about for the cause of this deficiency, and discovered it in his position.  Mentally, he was on the side of Society.  Yet he was annoyed to find the attack was so easily answerable when the defence unfolded.  But it was absurd to expect it would not be.  And in fact, a position secretly rebellious is equal to water on the brain for stultifying us.

Before the controversy was over, a note in Nataly’s handwriting called him home.  She wrote:  ’Make my excuses.  C. D. will give Nesta and some lady dinner.  A visitor here.  Come alone, and without delay.  Quite well, robust.  Impatient to consult with you, nothing else.’