"Oh, she must have overheard you."

"I suppose so, but it seemed wonderful. When Charles and
Aunt Juley drove up, calling each other names, Mrs. Wilcox
stepped in from the garden and made everything less
terrible. Ugh! but it has been a disgusting business. To
think that--" She sighed.

"To think that because you and a young man meet for a
moment, there must be all these telegrams and anger,"
supplied Margaret.

Helen nodded.

"I've often thought about it, Helen. It's one of the
most interesting things in the world. The truth is that
there is a great outer life that you and I have never
touched--a life in which telegrams and anger count.
Personal relations, that we think supreme, are not supreme
there. There love means marriage settlements, death, death
duties. So far I'm clear. But here my difficulty. This
outer life, though obviously horrid, often seems the real
one--there's grit in it. It does breed character. Do
personal relations lead to sloppiness in the end?"

"Oh, Meg, that's what I felt, only not so clearly, when
the Wilcoxes were so competent, and seemed to have their
hands on all the ropes. "

"Don't you feel it now?"