Page:The Inner House.djvu/76

72 life?" asked Christine. "To die? To exist no longer? To abandon life—for the sake of another person?"

A sudden change passed over all their faces. The light died out of their eyes; the smile died on their lips; the softness vanished from the ladies' faces; the men hung their heads. All their gallantry left them. And Geoffrey let Mildred's hands slip from his holding. The thought of Death brought them all back to the Present.

"No," said Lady Mildred, sadly, and with changed voice, "such things are no longer possible. Formerly, men despised death because it was certain to come, in a few years at best; and why not, therefore, to-morrow? But we cannot brave death any more. We live, each for himself. That is the only safety; there is only the law of self-preservation. All are alike; we cannot love each other any more, because we are all alike. No woman is better than another in any man's eyes, because we are all dressed the same, and we are all the same. What more do we want?" she said, harshly. "There is no change for us; we go from bed to work, from work to rest and food, and so to bed again. What more can we want? We are all equals; we are all the same; there are no more gentlewomen. Let us put on our gray frocks and our flat caps again, and hide our hair and go home to bed."

"Yes, yes," cried Christine, "but you will come again. You will come again, and we will make every night a Play and Pretence of the beautiful—the lovely Past. When we lay aside the gray frocks, and let down our hair, we shall go back to the old time—the dear old time."

The young man named Jack remained behind when the others were gone. "If it were possible," he said, "for a man to give up everything—even his life—for a woman, in the old times, when life was a rich and glorious