'But she is not an advanced girl. She is only a girl who knows a great deal. She is not in the least emancipated. Why, she still professes the Christian religion. She is just a girl who has set herself resolutely to learn all she can. She has been about it for five years. When she began, I understand that she knew nothing. What she means to do with her knowledge I have not learned. She talks French and German and Italian. You have heard her play? Very well: you can't beat that. You shall see some of her drawings. They are rather in your style, I think. A highly cultivated girl. That is all.' 'A female prig? A consciously superior person?' 'Not a bit. Rather humble-minded. But masterful and independent. Where she fails is, of course, in ordinary talk. She can't talk--she can only converse. She doesn't know the pictures and painters, and poets and novelists of the day--she doesn't know a single person in society. She doesn't know any personal history at all. And she doesn't care about any. That is Armorel.' 'I see,' he replied thoughtfully. 'Things will be difficult, I am afraid.' 'What things? Oh! there is another point in which she differs from people of society.' 'Yes?' 'When you and I, dear Alec, think and talk of people, we conclude that they are exactly like ourselves--do we not? Quite worldly and selfish, you know. Everyone with his little show to run for himself. Now, Armorel, on the other hand, concludes that everyone is like--not us--but herself. Do you catch the difference? There is a difference, you know.' 'Sometimes, Zoe, I seem not to understand you. But never mind. Under your influence----' 'I have no influence at all with her. I never shall have.' 'But, my dear Zoe, why are you here? I want you--I repeat--to exercise an overwhelming influence.' 'Oh! It is impossible. Consider--you who know me so well--how can I influence a girl who is always seeking after great things? She wants everything noble and lofty and pure. She has what they call a great soul--and I--oh! Alec, you know that I belong to the infinitely little souls. There are a great, great number of us, but we are very contemptible.' 'Let us think,' he replied. 'Let us contrive and devise some way----' 'Enough about Armorel. Tell me now about yourself.' 'I am always the same.' 'You have come, perhaps, this afternoon,' she murmured softly, 'to bring me some new hope--Oh! Alec--at last--some hope?' 'I have no new hope to give you, child.' Both sat in silence, looking into the firelight.