“How long is it now,” she began, “since you saw Gartley?”

“Three weeks or a month,” replied Hester.

“I am sadly afraid you cannot be much of a lover, not to have seen him for so long and still look so contented,” smiled Miss Vavasor, with gently implied reproach.

“When one has one’s work to do—” Hester began.

“Ah, yes!” returned Miss Vavasor, not waiting for the rest of the sentence. “I understand you have some peculiar ideas about work. That kind of thing is spreading very much in our circle, too. I know many ladies who visit the poor. The custom came in with these women’s-rights people. I fear they will upset everything before long. No one can tell where such things will end.”

“No,” replied Hester. “Nothing has ever stopped yet. We know nothing about the ends of things—only the beginnings.”

“You and Gartley had a small misunderstanding, he tells me, the last time you met,” said Miss Vavasor after a short pause.

“I think not,” answered Hester, “at least I think I understood him very well.”

“My dear Miss Raymount, you must not be offended with me. I am an old woman, and have had to soothe over differences that had got in the way of the happiness of many couples. I am not boasting when I say I have had considerable experience in that sort of thing.”

“I do not doubt it,” said Hester. “What I do doubt is that you have had any experience of the sort necessary to set things right between lord Gartley and myself. The fact is, for I will be perfectly open with you, that I saw then—for the first time plainly—that to marry him would be to lose my liberty.”

“Not more than every woman does who marries, my dear.”

“Except that he would expect me to turn away from obeying a higher calling even than the natural calling of a woman to marriage.”

“I am not aware of any higher calling.”

“I am. God has given me gifts to use for my fellow-man, and use them I must until he, not man, stops me. That is my calling.”

“But you know that of necessity a woman must give up many things when she accepts the position of a wife, and possibly the duties of a mother.”

“I would heartily acknowledge the natural claims upon a wife or mother.”

“But one of the duties of a wife is the claim society has upon her.”

“I could never subject myself to a code of laws assumed by society, not merely opposed to the work for which I was made, but to the laws of all human relations.”

“I do not quite understand you,” said Miss Vavasor.

“Well, for instance,” returned Hester, “a mother in your class often considers the duties she owes to society paramount even to those of a mother. Because of them, she entrusts her children in the nursery to the care of other women, not always of the highest intelligence or character.”