"I've had almost all the experiences of life," she continued, clearing her throat. "The endless cycle of birth and death has passed on its way through me. I've known poverty, defeat, humiliation, doubt, grief, discouragement, despair. I've had illness and death; I've borne children only to lose them again. I've worked hard and many times I've had to work alone, but I've had love, though all I have left of it is a sunken grave." "And I," answered Edith, "have had everything else but love. Believe me, I'd take all you've had, even the grave, if I could have it once." "It may come," said Madame, hopefully. Edith shook her head. "That's what I'm afraid of." "How so? Why be afraid?" "You see," she explained, "I'm young yet and I'm not so desperately unattractive as my matrimonial experiences might lead one to believe. I haven't known there was another man on earth except my husband, but his persistent neglect has made me open my eyes a little, and I begin to see others, on a far horizon. Red blood has a way of answering to red blood, whether there are barriers between or not, and if I loved another man, and he were unscrupulous----" "But," objected the older woman, "you couldn't love an unscrupulous man." [Sidenote: Like the Circus] "Couldn't I? My dear, when I see the pitiful specimens of manhood that women love, the things they give, the sacrifices they make, the neglect and desertions they suffer from, the countless humiliations they strive to bear proudly, I wonder that any one of us dares to look in the mirror. "It's the eternal woman-hunger for love that makes us what we are, compels us to endure what we do, and keeps us all door-mats with 'Welcome' printed on us in red letters. Eagerly trustful, we keep on buying tickets to the circus, and never discover until we're old and grey, that it's always exactly the same entertainment, and we're admitted to it, each time, by a different door. "Sometimes we see the caged wild animals first, and again, we arrive at the pink-lemonade stand; or, up at the other end, where the trapezes are, or in the middle, opposite the tank. Sometimes the band plays and sometimes it doesn't, but all you need in order to be thoroughly disillusioned is to stay to the concert, which bears about the same relation to the circus that marriage does to your anticipations." "Are you afraid," laughed Madame, "that you'll buy another ticket?" "No, but I'll find it, or somebody will give me a pass. I'm too young to stay to the concert and there's more of life coming to me still. I only hope and pray that I'll manage to keep my head and not make the fatal, heart-breaking mistake of the women who go over the precipice, waving defiance at the social law that bids them stay with the herd." [Sidenote: Mixed Metaphors] "Your metaphors are mixed," Madame commented. "Concerts and circuses, and herds, and precipices and door-mats. I feel as though you had presented me with a jig-saw puzzle."