She stood on an island where four roads met and looked about her. The sun stared down at her, a brazen city sun. The asphalt was hot and soft under her feet. Road-menders were at work in the fair-way. They struck alternately at the chisel between them and it was as if the rain of blows fell upon her. She felt stupid and dizzy. She did not know where to turn. There was nothing left of her village, and yet the place was familiar. There were drab houses and rows of shops and a stream of traffic, and the figures of women and men—menacing, impersonal figures of men—that hurried towards her down the endless streets. “Well?” said the Baxter girl. “But that’s not the _end_?” I said. The Baxter girl looked at me oddly. “Why not?” And then—“How else could it end? How would you make it end?” “Oh, I don’t mean——” I began. I hesitated. “I don’t think I quite understand,” I said. That was the truth. At the time I couldn’t follow it. It moved me. It swept me along. But whether it was good or bad I didn’t know. I hadn’t the faintest idea of what it was driving at. I felt in a vague way that the people at home wouldn’t have liked it. “What does it mean?” I said to the Baxter girl. “That you can’t eat your cake and have it, I suppose. You can get out of Eden, but you can’t get back.” Anita answered her contemptuously— “Is that all it means to you?” And yet we had spoken very softly. But Anita had eyes that ate up every movement in a room, and her small pretty ears never seemed to miss a significant word though ten people were talking. I had seen her glance uneasily at us and again at the two in the other room. I knew Great-aunt’s mutter was too low even for her, and Kent Rehan only nodded now and then, but even that annoyed her. She lifted her own voice to be sure that they should hear all that she said, as if afraid lest, even for a moment, she should be left out of their thoughts. “Oh!” she said loudly and contemptuously, “I tell you what _I_ see.” She succeeded, if that pleased her. Kent Rehan raised his head and stared across at her with that impersonal expression of attention that, I was beginning to realize, could always anger her on any face. She had said a little while ago that she only cared for Miss Grey as an artist, and I believe that she believed it. But I don’t think—I shall never think it true. I think Anita depended—depends, on other people more than she dreams. Poor Anita! I can see her now, her whole personality challenging those dark abstracted eyes. But she spoke to the Baxter girl— “When Madala Grey chose _Eden Walls_ for her title—when she flung it in the public face——” I saw him give a shrug of fatigue or distaste—I couldn’t tell which. Great-aunt, who had been sitting, her head on one side, with her sharp poll-parrot expression, crooked her finger at me. I went across to her and behind me I heard the Baxter girl— “You talk as if she were in a passion——” And Anita—