“Madame, dear child, think of all you have been to us,” said Uncle David, reaching his hands out to her imploringly. “You have led us, think of all that.” “I do think of all that. I think of how I found this boy,” she said, pointing in scorn to Ezra, “ignorant, unformed, with wild crude longings. I think of how I infused light and life into the darkness of his mind. How I rose, aye, above myself, in order to lead him up and on. I think of all his half-formed longings put into working form and endowed with vital power that he might see his thoughts taking shape. I made him. He was mine. Then he left me for a few brief weeks. He saw a pretty doll’s face with an empty head, and straightway he loves with never a thought of me. You ask me to think. I do think of how even this I bore, and so great was my love that for his sake I welcomed the doll that had stolen my place, and smiled on her. Even this I did and remained his friend. She, the doll, attracted by a handsome face, her love aroused by the stolen kisses of a yellow moustache, left him. Then I was free to love him once more. I laid my heart at his feet. He spurned me. All my love was as nothing against the memory of the doll who had deserted him. She may die and rot before word of mine shall restore her to him.” Neither Ezra nor Uncle David had attempted to speak while Madame was pouring forth the torrent of her bitter words. Ezra felt too overwhelmed to say anything, for a moment, in the downfall of so many illusions and high hopes, he forgot even Olive. Uncle David was the first to recover himself. “Dear child,” he said, for the first time in his life addressing her as one beneath him. “These are wild words you’ve been sayin’. I can’t find it in my heart to believe they’re true. You are disappointed, an’ you think wrong can be made right by turnin’ things upside down. Tain’t so. You’ll have to learn that right an’ wrong can’t change places, nohow you fix it. You have still your duty here in the City you’ve founded an’ the principles you’ve set up.” Madame looked at him with glittering eyes. “Will you hear the truth about Perfection City too? Then listen. It is not an experiment in new principles, it is an example of the oldest the world has seen—of the folly of a fond woman. I founded Perfection City so that he might love the founder. I staked my all on a throw of love’s dice, and lost. Women have done it before and will do it again. Some fools degrade their body to win a man, I degraded my mind. The foundation-stone of Perfection City was my heart, see what will happen when it is crushed! Ah, why can we not profit by the experience of our elders! My mother warned me, having tried it, never to stake my happiness on the love of man. I followed her advice for five-and-thirty happy years. Then I saw _him_, and the curse fell.” She threw up her arms over her head and backed towards the door of her own apartment.