. She was in the mood for such a kind of writing: she
could have started on it at once but that the theme was wanting; and it may
count on popularity, a great repute for penetration. It is true of its kind,
though the dredging of nature is the miry form of art. When it flourishes we may
be assured we have been overenamelling the higher forms. She felt, and shuddered
to feel, that she could draw from dark stores. Hitherto in her works it had been
a triumph of the good. They revealed a gaping deficiency of the subtle insight
she now possessed. »Exhibit humanity as it is, wallowing, sensual, wicked,
behind the mask,« a voice called to her; she was allured by the contemplation of
the wide-mouthed old dragon Ego, whose portrait, decently painted, establishes
an instant touch of exchange between author and public, the latter detected and
confessing. Next to the pantomime of Humour and Pathos, a cynical surgical knife
at the human bosom seems the surest talisman for this agreeable exchange; and
she could cut. She gave herself a taste of her powers. She cut at herself
mercilessly, and had to bandage the wound in a hurry to keep in life.
    Metaphors were her refuge. Metaphorically she could allow her mind to
distinguish the struggle she was undergoing, sinking under it. The banished of
Eden had to put on metaphors, and the common use of them has helped largely to
civilize us. The sluggish in intellect detest them, but our civilization is not
much indebted to that major faction. Especially are they needed by the
pedestalled woman in her conflict with the natural. Diana saw herself through
the haze she conjured up. »Am I worse than other women?« was a piercing
twi-thought. Worse, would be hideous isolation. The not worse, abased her sex.
She could afford to say that the world was bad: not that women were.
    Sinking deeper, an anguish of humiliation smote her to a sense of drowning.
For what if the poetic ecstasy on her Salvatore heights had not been of origin
divine? had sprung from other than spiritual founts? had sprung from the
reddened sources she was compelled to conceal? Could it be? She would not
believe it. But there was matter to clip her wings, quench her light, in the
doubt.
    She fell asleep like the wrecked flung ashore.
    Danvers entered her room at an early hour for London to inform her that Mr.
Percy Dacier was below, and begged permission to wait.
    Diana gave orders for breakfast to be proposed to
