in a whirl of the senses. He was a handsome blackguard, of independent
means, and she had spent her nightmare of a honeymoon at Brighton. On three
occasions, during her five-and-twenty years of existence, she had spent a
golden week in London. That was all she knew of the wide world. It was not
very much. Reading had given her a second-hand acquaintance with the doings
of various classes of mankind, and such pictures as she had seen had filled
her head with dreams of strange and wonderful places. But otherwise she was
ignorant, beautifully, childishly ignorant--and undismayed.

What was she going to do? Sensitive and responsive to beauty, filled with
artistic impulses, she could neither paint, act, sing, nor write pretty
little stories for the magazines. She had no special gift to develop. To
earn her living in a humdrum way she had no need. She had no high Ibsenite
notions of working out her own individuality. She had no consuming passion
for reforming any section of the universe. She had no mission--that she
knew of--to accomplish. Unlike so many of her sex who yearn to be as men
and go out into the world she had no inner mandate to do anything, no
ambition to be anything. She was simply a great, rich flower, struggling
through the shade to the sunlight, plenty of sunlight, as much sunlight as
the heavens could give her.

The Literary Man from London happened to be returning to town by the train
that carried Zora on the first stage of her pilgrimage. He obtained her
consent to travel up in the same carriage. He asked her to what branch of
human activity she intended to devote herself. She answered that she was
going to lie, anyhow, among the leaves. He rebuked her.

"We ought," said he, "to justify our existence."

She drew herself up and flashed an indignant glance at him.