Page:Traveler from Altruria, Howells, 1894.djvu/121

Rh "They have not the remotest idea of it! They have no conception of what a society woman goes through with. They think we do nothing. They envy us, too, and sometimes they're so ungrateful and indifferent, if you try to help them, or get on terms with them, that I believe they hate us."

"But that comes from ignorance'"

"Yes, though I don't know that they are really any more ignorant of us than we are of them. It's the other half on both sides."

"Isn't that a pity, rather?"

"Of course it's a pity, but what can you do? You can't know what people are like unless you live like them, and then the question is whether the game is worth the candle. I should like to know how you manage in Altruria."

"Why, we have solved the problem in the only way, as you say, that it can be solved. We all live alike."

"Isn't that a little, just a very trifling little bit monotonous?" Mrs. Makely asked, with a smile. "But there is everything, of course, in being used to it. To an unregenerate spirit—like mine, for example—it seems intolerable."