Page:The Yellow Book - 02.djvu/183

Rh The superiority of the older experienced women made the girl feel weak. She would have a joy in confessing herself.

"I suppose it was chiefly Gerty's marriage which set me thinking I'd better change. Until then I'd lived contentedly enough. I'm easily occupied, and I felt no necessity to work. But when I was left alone with father, I began gradually to feel as if I couldn't go on living so, as if I hadn't the right; nothing I ever did pleased him. And then I wondered what I was waiting for"

She looked up at Lady Beamish and saw her fine features set attentively to her story; she could tell everything to such a face—all these things of which she had never spoken to any one. She looked away again.

"Was I waiting to get married? That idea tortured me. Why should ideas come and trouble us when they're untrue and bear no likeness to our character?"

She turned her head once more to glance at the face above her.

"I looked into myself. Was it true of me that my only outlook in life was a man, that that was the only aim of my life? It wasn't necessary to answer the question, for it flashed into my mind with bitter truth that if I'd been playing that game, I'd been singularly unsuccessful, so I needn't trouble about the question"

Astonished at herself, she moved her hand up, and Lady Beamish stretched out hers, and held the girl's hand upon her lap. Then, half ashamed of her frankness, she went on quickly and in a more ordinary tone:

"Oh, that and everything else—I was afraid of growing bitter. When my father threw up his work and decided to go to Algiers with his old friends, that seemed a good opportunity: I would do something for myself, you're justified if you work. It seemed Rh