reading her lips, did not need to hear the words.

"If I had been strong, like you, Mary, I could have held my own against
Frances and have made something of myself. But I'm not strong, and
twenty-five years ago women did not ask for freedom. They asked
for--love."

"But I want to find freedom in my love. Not be bound as Porter wants
to bind me. He'd put me on a pedestal and worship me, and I'd rather
stand shoulder to shoulder with my husband and be his comrade. I don't
want him to look up too far, or to look down as Gordon looks down on
Constance."

"Looks down? Why, he adores her, Mary."

"Oh, he loves her. And he'll do everything for her, but he will do it
as if she were a child. He won't ask her opinion in any vital matter.
He won't share his big interests with her, and so he'll never discover
the big fine womanliness. And she'll shrivel to his measure of her."

Aunt Isabelle shook her head, smiling. "Don't analyze too much, Mary.
Men and women are human--and you may lose yourself in a search for the
Ideal."

"Do you know what Porter calls me, Aunt Isabelle? Contrary Mary. He
says I never do things the way the people expect. Yet I do them the
way that I must. It is as if some force were inside of me--driving
me--on."

She stood up as she said it, stretching out her arms in an eager