Ethel’s voice became indistinct, as though some one had shut a door in front of it.  Honora was trembling on the brink of a discovery:  holding herself back from it, as one who has climbed a fair mountain recoils from the lip of an unsuspected crater at sight of the lazy, sulphurous fumes.  All the years of her marriage, ever since she had first heard his name, the stature of James Wing had been insensibly growing, and the vastness of his empire gradually disclosed.  She had lived in that empire:  in it his word had stood for authority, his genius had been worshipped, his decrees had been absolute.

She had met him once, in Howard’s office, when he had greeted her gruffly, and the memory of his rugged features and small red eyes, like live coals, had remained.  And she saw now the drama that had taken place before Ethel’s eyes.  The capitalist, overbearing, tyrannical, hearing a few, simple truths in his own house from Peter—­her Peter.  And she recalled her husband’s account of his talk with James Wing.  Peter had refused to sell himself.  Had Howard?  Many times during the days that followed she summoned her courage to ask her husband that question, and kept silence.  She did not wish to know.

“I don’t want to seem disloyal to papa,” Ethel was saying.  “He is under great responsibilities to other people, to stockholders; and he must get things done.  But oh, Honora, I’m so tired of money, money, money and its standards, and the things people are willing to do for it.  I’ve seen too much.”

Honora looked at her friend, and believed her.  One glance at the girl’s tired eyes—­a weariness somehow enhanced—­in effect by the gold sheen of her hair—­confirmed the truth of her words.

“You’ve changed, Ethel, since Sutcliffe,” she said.

“Yes, I’ve changed,” said Ethel Wing, and the weariness was in her voice, too.  “I’ve had too much, Honora.  Life was all glitter, like a Christmas tree, when I left Sutcliffe.  I had no heart.  I’m not at all sure that I have one now.  I’ve known all kinds of people—­except the right kind.  And if I were to tell you some of the things that have happened to me in five years you wouldn’t believe them.  Money has been at the bottom of it all,—­it ruined my brother, and it has ruined me.  And then, the other day, I beheld a man whose standards simply take no account of money, a man who holds something else higher.  I—­I had been groping lately, and then I seemed to see clear for the first time in my life.  But I’m afraid it comes too late.”

Honora took her friend’s hand in her own and pressed it.

“I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” said Ethel:  “It seems to-day as though I had always known you, and yet we weren’t particularly intimate at school.  I suppose I’m inclined to be oversuspicious.  Heaven knows I’ve had enough to make me so.  But I always thought that you were a little—­ambitious.  You’ll forgive my frankness, Honora.  I don’t think you’re at all so, now.”  She glanced at Honora suddenly.  “Perhaps you’ve changed, too,” she said.