Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/308



had been a girl once, with black silk hair and a high, passionate heart. Where was she now, that the years pass by? The black silk was on the children's heads, and the passion—oh, it was burned in the Franklin stove—four stories had been enough to hold it all.

There had been a girl once...

Now a woman rocked a child in her arms, holding it cautiously lest it disturb the next younger growing within her body.

There had been a girl once...

But not contented as this woman was contented. A desperate, driven thing that could drink of the cup Anthony Jones offered and wipe her mouth. Break her heart and forget.

'It is through my children I will now see life,' she thought, and felt the unutterable solitude of the human heart that sees only the vast stretch of centuries behind and the burden of time beyond. From her, in all directions, stretched time and space, and she, the least important of all things, stood for a second in the centre of the universe.

'The Romans lived and fought,' she thought, 'so that I might have history to read in school, and the only result of the Napoleonic wars is that once in a long time I think carelessly what a vulgar, little,