to be done to keep them
apart. He asked me what madness possessed me, to sit by an open window at
midnight, in view of the public, with a damp wind blowing. I complained of want
of air and fanned my forehead. I heard the steps on the pavement; I stung him to
retort loudly, and I was relieved; the steps passed on. So the trick succeeded -
the trick! It was the worst I was guilty of, but it was a trick, and it branded
me trickster. It teaches me to see myself with an abyss in my nature full of
infernal possibilities. I think I am hewn in black rock. A woman who can do as I
did by instinct, needs to have an angel always near her, if she has not a
husband she reveres.«
    »We are none of us better than you, dear Tony; only some are more fortunate,
and many are cowards,« Emma said. »You acted prudently in a wretched situation,
partly of your own making, partly of the circumstances. But a nature like yours
could not sit still and moan. That marriage was to blame! The English notion of
women seems to be that we are born white sheep or black; circumstances have
nothing to do with our colour. They dread to grant distinctions, and to judge of
us discerningly is beyond them. Whether the fiction, that their homes are purer
than elsewhere, helps to establish the fact, I do not know: there is a class
that does live honestly; and at any rate it springs from a liking for purity;
but I am sure that their method of impressing it on women has the dangers of
things artificial. They narrow their understanding of human nature, and that is
not the way to improve the breed.«
    »I suppose we women are taken to be the second thoughts of the Creator;
human nature's fringes, mere finishing touches, not a part of the texture,« said
Diana; »the pretty ornamentation. However, I fancy I perceive some tolerance
growing in the minds of the dominant sex. Our old lawyer Mr. Braddock, who
appears to have no distaste for conversations with me, assures me he expects the
day to come when women will be encouraged to work at crafts and professions for
their independence. That is the secret of the opinion of us at present - our
dependency. Give us the means of independence, and we will gain it, and have a
turn at judging you, my lords! You shall behold a world reversed. Whenever I am
distracted by