“No, certainly not!  For if you never do anything out of the humdrum line, and never compromise yourself in any way, Society will be so furious with your superiority to itself that it will invent a thousand calumnies and hang them all on your name.  And you will never know how they arise, and never be able to disprove them.”

“Does it matter?”—­and Maryllia smiled—­“If one’s conscience is clear, need one care what people say?”

“Conscience!” exclaimed Lady Beaulyon—­“What an old-fashioned expression!  Surely it’s better to do something people can lay hold of and talk about, than have them invent something you have never done!  They will give you no credit for virtue or honesty in this world, Maryllia, unless you grow ugly and deformed.  Then perhaps they will admit you may be good, and they will add—­’She has no temptation to be otherwise.’”

“I do not like your code of morality, Eva,” said Maryllia, quietly.

“Perhaps not, but it’s the only one that works in our day!” replied Eva, with some heat, “Surely you know that?”

“I try to forget it as much as possible,”—­and Maryllia’s eyes were full of a sweet wistfulness as she spoke—­“Especially here—­in my father’s home!”

“Oh well!” said Lady Beaulyon, with a touch of impatience—­“You are a strange girl—­you always were!  You can ‘live good,’ or try to, if you like; and stay down here all alone with the doldrums and the humdrums.  But you’ll be sick of it in six months.  I’m sure you will!  Not a man will come near you,—­they hate virtuous women nowadays,—­ and scarce a woman will come either, save old and ugly ones!  You will kill yourself socially altogether by the effort.  Life’s too short to lose all the fun out of it for the sake of an ideal or a theory!”

Here the gong sounded for dinner.  Maryllia turned away from her dressing-table, and confronted her friend.  Her face was grave and earnest in its expression, and her eyes were very steadfast and clear.

“I don’t want what you call ‘fun,’ Eva,”—­she said—­“I want love!  Love seems to me the only good thing in life.  Do you understand?  You ask me why I left my aunt—­it was to escape a loveless marriage,—­a marriage that would be a positive hell to me for which neither wealth nor position could atone.  As for ‘living good,’ I am not trying that way.  I only want to understand myself, and find out my own possibilities and limitations.  And if I never do win the love I want,—­if no one ever cares for me at all, then I shall be perfectly content to live and die unmarried.”

“What a fate!” laughed Lady Beaulyon, shrugging her white shoulders.

“A better one than the usual divorce court result of some ‘society’ marriages,”—­said Maryllia, calmly—­“Anyhow, I’d rather risk single blessedness than united ‘cussedness’!  Let us go down to dinner, Eva!  On all questions pertaining to ‘Souls’ and modern social ethics, we must agree to differ!”