'Why shouldn't I live for anything?' she asked. 'Because life's too dear. And its pleasures are not white but piebald.' 'I understand,' said Victoria, 'but I must live.' '_Je n'en vois pas la nécessité_,' quoted Farwell smiling. 'Never mind what that means,' he added, 'I'm only a pessimist.' The next few weeks seemed to create in Victoria a new personality. Her reading was so carefully selected that every line told. Farwell knew the hundred best books for a working girl; he had a large library composed mostly of battered copies squeezed out of his daily bread. Victoria's was the appetite of a gorgon. In another month she had absorbed _Odd Women_, _An Enemy of the People_, _The_ _Doll's House_, _Alton Locke_, and a translation of _Germinal_. Every night she read with an intensity which made her forget that March chilled her to the bone; poring over the book, her eyes a few inches from the candle, she soaked in rebellion. When the cold nipped too close into her she would get up and wrap herself in the horsecloth and read with savage application, rushing to the core of the thought. She was no student, so she would skip a hard word. Besides, in those moods, when the spirit bounds in the body like a caged bird, words are felt, not understood. Betty was still hovering round her, a gentle presence. She knew what was going on and was frightened. A new Victoria was rising before her, a woman very charming still, but extraordinary, incomprehensible. Often Victoria would snub her savagely, then take her hand as they stood together at the counter bawling for food and drink. And as Victoria grew hard and strong, Betty worshipped her more as she would have worshipped a strong man. Yet Betty was not happy. Victoria lived now in a state of excitement and hunger for solitude. She took no interest in things that Betty could understand. Their Sunday walks had been ruthlessly cut now and then, for the fury was upon Victoria when eating the fruits of the tree. When they were together now Victoria was preoccupied; she no longer listened to the club gossip, nor did she ask to be told once more the story of Betty's early days. 'Do you know you're sweated?' she said suddenly one day. Betty's eyes opened round and blue. 'Sweated,' she said. 'I thought only people in the East End were sweated.' 'The world's one big East End,' snapped Victoria. Betty shivered. Farwell might have said that. 'You're sweated if you get two pounds a week,' continued Victoria. 'You're sweated when you buy a loaf, sweated when you ride in a bus, sweated when they cremate you.' 'I don't understand,' said Betty. 'All profits are sweated,' quoted Victoria from a pamphlet. 'But people must make profits,' protested Betty. 'What for?' asked Victoria. 'How are people to live unless they make profits?' said Betty. 'Aren't our wages profits?' Victoria was nonplussed for a moment and became involved. 'No, our wages are only wages; profit is the excess over our wages.'