“Perhaps I did; but it was the inbred collapsed finish of the good stock. My father idled backward to the slums—my mother was gentle, but that was all. He was dead before I could remember. Oh, that dreadful back-street life! You can’t understand. We were only a little removed from the gossipy-doorstep folk who talk of a neighbour’s confinement as they lean on the rickety railings. We played with their children, my sister and I, bought from their horrid mean shops—went to the same wretched school. Oh! how I hated it all—the miserable rooms, the bargaining for food, the squabbles, and the never-ending economy and thrift. Grey—grey—grey! I used to lash a purple whiptop at the corner of the street, and pray sometimes a great chariot of fire would snatch me up into the skies.” It was Wynne’s habit to ignore central ideas in another’s conversation, hence the question: “Why a _purple_ top?” “I hardly know—but it was _always_ purple. I kept a patch of purple on my horizon.” He looked at her queerly. “What do you mean by that?” “The Royal Purple. Somehow it stands out as the colour which rises above all sordidness. Can’t explain it otherwise.” He nodded. “I know what you mean. Strange you should feel like that, too.” The “too” was scarcely audible. “When I was ever so little I had that feeling, and it has grown up with me. I used to believe that a purple goodness lined the great clouds above and the hilltops of my imagination. I could travel in my imagination, too. Just close my eyes and say to myself: Now the world is falling away, and I’m floating upwards, and I would pass above all the slates and see down all the chimneys until the houses became cities, and the cities grey marks on the green earth—and the rivers twisted silver wires which curled from the mountains to the sea.” “You should meet Uncle Clem,” said Wynne. “Who is he?” “A man who thinks that way. But what is it like up there in the clouds?” “Do you know, strangely, it isn’t very different—only fuller. Just as if one went up discontented and found contentment in what one had left behind. I used to think this was because my imagination couldn’t picture a better state, but I believe that no longer.” “The climb is for nothing, then?” “Oh, no, for the climb proves that what you sought is the best of what you left behind.” “H’m! Sometimes,” he said. “You have queer notions. Have you found out what is the best of your possessions?” “I don’t know them by heart, yet.” “Why by heart?” “I am a woman.” “Yes, and sometimes, I think, just like any other.” “I am.” “Once I tried to define my motives—can you define yours?” “I want a place in the sun—want it tremendously. I want to be able to think and feel and move among lovely things and people. I have given away twenty years to sordidness, and all I have earned is appreciation of the beautiful. I want to live the beautiful now, and rise above the trivial bother of a washpail and a gas-ring.”