an hypocrisy that pays homage to the mask of virtue by copying it; the
world is hostile to the face of an innocence not conventionally simpering
and quite surprised; the world prefers decorum to honesty. 'Let me be
myself, whatever the martyrdom!' she cried, in that phase of young
sensation when, to the blooming woman; the putting on of a mask appears
to wither her and reduce her to the show she parades. Yet, in common
with her sisterhood, she owned she had worn a sort of mask; the world
demands it of them as the price of their station. That she had never
worn it consentingly, was the plea for now casting it off altogether,
showing herself as she was, accepting martyrdom, becoming the first
martyr of the modern woman's cause--a grand position! and one imaginable
to an excited mind in the dark, which does not conjure a critical humour,
as light does, to correct the feverish sublimity. She was, then, this
martyr, a woman capable of telling the world she knew it, and of,
confessing that she had behaved in disdain of its rigider rules,
according to her own ideas of her immunities. O brave!

But was she holding the position by flight? It involved the challenge
of consequences, not an evasion of them.

She moaned; her mental steam-wheel stopped; fatigue brought sleep.

She had sensationally led her rebellious wits to The Crossways,
distilling much poison from thoughts on the way; and there, for the
luxury of a still seeming indecision, she sank into oblivion.




CHAPTER XI