cooking--of stew and bread puddings. For herself she had dreamed a
nobler destiny, a destiny of romance, of delicious unknown things,
romantic and indescribably exciting. She was to have the adventures,
because she needed them. Emmy didn't need them. It was all very well for
Emmy to say "What about me!" It was no business of hers what happened to
Emmy. They were different. Still, she repeated more confidently because
there had been no immediate retort:

"Well, it's just as bad for both of us! _Just_ as bad!"

"'Tisn't! You're out all day--doing what you like!"

"Oh!" Jenny's eyes opened with theatrical wideness at such a perversion
of the facts. "Doing what I like! The millinery!"

"You are! You don't have to do all the scraping to make things go round,
like I have to. No, you don't! Here have I ... been in this ... place,
slaving! Hour after hour! I wish _you'd_ try and manage better. I bet
you'd be thankful to finish up the scraps some way--any old way! I'd
like to see _you_ do what I do!"

Momentarily Jenny's picture of Emmy's nature (drawn accommodatingly by
herself in order that her own might be differentiated and exalted by
any comparison) was shattered. Emmy's vehemence had thus the temporary
effect of creating a fresh reality out of a common idealisation of
circumstance. The legend would re-form later, perhaps, and would
continue so to re-form as persuasion flowed back upon Jenny's egotism,
until it crystallised hard and became unchallengeable; but at any rate
for this instant Jenny had had a glimmer of insight into that tamer
discontent and rebelliousness that encroached like a canker upon Emmy's