Wherein was she better? Wherein lay the difference between her and
the maid?

She covered her hot face with her hands as the question took the
form: "Wherein am I worse? Is not our principle of action the same,
while I have greater power and have been crippling higher types
of men, and giving them, for sport, an impulse towards the devil?
Fenton Lane has just gone from my side with trouble in his eyes.
He will not be himself to-morrow, not half the man he might be.
He left me in doubt and fear. Could I do anything oppressed with
doubt and fear? He has set his heart on what can never be. Could I
have prevented him from doing this? One thing at least is certain,--I
have not tried to prevent it, and I fear there have been many little
nameless things which he would regard as encouragement. And he
is only one. With others I have gone farther and they have fared
worse. It is said that Mr. Folger, whom I refused last winter, is
becoming dissipated. Mr. Arton shuns society and sneers at women.
Oh, don't let me think of any more. What have I been doing that
this coarse kitchen-maid can run so close a parallel between her
life and mine? How unwomanly and repulsive it all seems, as that
man put it! My delight and pride have been my gentleman friends,
and what one of them is the better, or has a better prospect for
life, because of having known me? Could there be a worse satire on
all the fine things written about woman and her influence than my
hitherto vain and complacent self?"

Sooner or later conscience tells the truth to all; and the sooner
the better, unless the soul arraigned is utterly weak, or else
belongs essentially to the criminal classes, which require almost
a miracle to reverse their evil gravitation. Marian Vosburgh