But unfortunately I'm unable to take that view.
I've battered myself against it too long--too sorely, Celia!"
Celia shrugged her shoulders in comment. "Oh, we women
all have our walls--our limitations--if it comes to that,"
she said, with a kind of compassionate impatience in her tone.
"We are all ridiculous together--from the point of view
of human liberty. The free woman is a fraud--a myth.
She is as empty an abstraction as the 'Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity' that the French put on their public buildings.
I used to have the most wonderful visions of what independence
would mean. I thought that when I was absolutely my
own master, with my money and my courage and my free mind,
I would do things to astonish all mankind. But really
the most I achieve is the occasional mild surprise of a
German waiter. Even that palls on one after a time.
And if you were independent, Edith--if you had any amount
of money--what difference do you think it would make to you?
What could you do that you don't do, or couldn't do, now?"
"Ah, now"--said the other, looking up with a thin
smile--"now is an interval--an oasis."
Miss Madden's large, handsome, clear-hued face,
habitually serene in its expression, lost something in
composure as she regarded her companion. "I don't know
why you should say that," she observed, gently enough,
but with an effect of reproof in her tone.
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