In all this there was no room for Olivia. Somehow the ordering of our four rooms over the store didn't appeal to me as a justification of existence, and I didn't care to undertake again matching the adventures of my neighbours in the field of domestic economy with mine in the department of self-expression. Let any one who disbelieves it try if he can assure the acceptance of his art on its merit as work, free of the implication of egotism. You may talk about a new frosting for cake, or an aeroplane you have invented, but you must not speak of a new verse form or a plastic effect. All this time, in spite of my recent revulsion from it, I was consumed with the desire of acting. My new-found faculty ached for use. It woke me in the night and wasted me; I had wild thoughts such as men have in the grip of an unjustifiable passion. All my imaginings at that time were of events, untoward, fantastic, which should somehow throw me back upon the stage without the necessity on my part, of a moral conclusion. Sarah Croyden, to whom I wrote voluminously, could not understand why I resisted it; there was after all no actual opposition except what lay inherent in my traditions. Sarah had such a way of accepting life; she used it and her gift. Mine used me. I saw that it might even abuse me. She went, by nature, undefended and unharmed from the two-edged sword that keeps the gates of Creative Art, but me it pierced even to the dividing of soul and spirit. My husband stood always curiously outside the consideration. I think he was scarcely aware of what went on in me; if any news of my tormented state reached him, he would have seen, except as it was mollified by affection, what all Higgleston saw in it, the restlessness of vanity, a craving for excitement, for praise, and a vague taint of irregularity. He was sympathetic to the point of admitting that Higgleston was dull; he thought we might join the Chatauqua Society. "Or you might get up a class," he suggested hopefully; "it would give you something to think about." "Teach," I cried; "TEACH! when I'm just aching to learn!" "Well, then," he achieved a triumph of reasonableness, "if you don't know enough to teach in Higgleston, how are you going to succeed on the stage?"