and covertly held position afflicted her like shame.

Were all women who became good wives asked to falsify themselves? Was
furtive diplomacy, or, at least, spiritual compromise, the miserable
duty of woman? Was it her business to placate her mate, and, by
exercising the cunning of the weak, to keep out from under his heel?

There was no one in all Silvertree whom the discriminating would so
quickly have mentioned as the ideal wife as Mrs. Barrington. She
herself, no doubt, so Kate concluded with her merciless young
psychology, regarded herself as noble. But the people in Silvertree had
a passion for thinking of themselves as noble. They had, Kate said to
herself bitterly, so few charms that they had to fall back on their
virtues. In the face of all this it became increasingly difficult to
think of marriage as a goal for herself, and her letters to McCrea were
further and further apart as the slow weeks passed. She had once read
the expression, "the authentic voice of happiness," and it had lived
hauntingly in her memory. Could Ray speak that? Would she, reading his
summons from across half the world, hasten to him, choose him from the
millions, face any future with him? She knew she would not. No, no;
union with the man of average congeniality was not her goal. There must
be something more shining than that for her to speed toward it.

However, one day she caught, opportunely, a hint of the further meanings
of a woman's life. Honora provided a great piece of news, and
illuminated with a new understanding, Kate wrote:--

"MY DEAR, DEAR GIRL:--

"You write me that something beautiful is going to happen to