it. Why
do poor people care only for stories about the rich? The same principle.«
    »How clever you are, Amy!«
    »Am I? It's very nice to be told so. Perhaps I have some cleverness of a
kind; but what use is it to me? My life is being wasted. I ought to have a place
in the society of clever people. I was never meant to live quietly in the
background. Oh, if I hadn't been in such a hurry, and so inexperienced!«
    »Oh, I wanted to ask you,« said Edith, soon after this. »Do you wish Albert
to say anything about you - at the hospital?«
    »There's no reason why he shouldn't.«
    »You won't even write to say -?«
    »I shall do nothing.«
    Since the parting from her husband, there had proceeded in Amy a noticeable
maturing of intellect. Probably the one thing was a consequence of the other.
During that last year in the flat her mind was held captive by material cares,
and this arrest of her natural development doubtless had much to do with the
appearance of acerbity in a character which had displayed so much sweetness, so
much womanly grace. Moreover, it was arrest at a critical point. When she fell
in love with Edwin Reardon her mind had still to undergo the culture of
circumstances; though a woman in years she had seen nothing of life but a few
phases of artificial society, and her education had not progressed beyond the
final school-girl stage. Submitting herself to Reardon's influence, she passed
through what was a highly useful training of the intellect; but with the result
that she became clearly conscious of the divergence between herself and her
husband. In endeavouring to imbue her with his own literary tastes, Reardon
instructed Amy as to the natural tendencies of her mind, which till then she had
not clearly understood. When she ceased to read with the eyes of passion, most
of the things which were Reardon's supreme interests lost their value for her. A
sound intelligence enabled her to think and feel in many directions, but the
special line of her growth lay apart from that in which the novelist and
classical scholar had directed her.
    When she found herself alone and independent, her mind acted like a spring
when pressure is removed. After a few weeks of désoeuvrement she obeyed the
impulse to occupy herself with a kind of reading alien to Reardon's sympathies.
The solid periodicals attracted her, and especially those articles which