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person) had kept his promises, instead of behaving with unspeakable
horridness, all would have been well. Now her only hope was that
liberal-minded woman, Miss Mergle, who, a year ago, had sent her out,
highly educated, into the world. Miss Mergle had told her at parting
to live fearlessly and truly, and had further given her a volume of
Emerson's Essays and Motley's "Dutch Republic," to help her through the
rapids of adolescence.
Jessie's feelings for her stepmother's household at Surbiton amounted to
an active detestation. There are no graver or more solemn women in the
world than these clever girls whose scholastic advancement has retarded
their feminine coquetry. In spite of the advanced tone of 'Thomas
Plantagenet's' antimarital novel, Jessie had speedily seen through that
amiable woman's amiable defences. The variety of pose necessitated by
the corps of 'Men' annoyed her to an altogether unreasonable degree. To
return to this life of ridiculous unreality--unconditional capitulation
to 'Conventionality' was an exasperating prospect. Yet what else was
there to do? You will understand, therefore, that at times she was moody
(and Mr. Hoopdriver respectfully silent and attentive) and at times
inclined to eloquent denunciation of the existing order of things. She
was a Socialist, Hoopdriver learnt, and he gave a vague intimation
that he went further, intending, thereby, no less than the horrors
of anarchism. He would have owned up to the destruction of the Winter
Palace indeed, had he had the faintest idea where the Winter Palace was,
and had his assurance amounted to certainty that the Winter Palace was
destroyed. He agreed with her cordially that the position of women was
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