Madame was in the habit of being worshipped by men, and was not at all prepared to have her remarks ridiculed by a slip of a girl. She did not like it, and therefore replied with some asperity, “You are really too silly, Sister Olive. You must surely perceive that there is great danger in your associating with Mr. Cotterell on so familiar a footing, that, in short, he may fall in love with you, and I presume you can understand the danger of that.” “Precisely, a fresh set of laws must, as usual, be applied to me, and not those which govern the rest of you,” said Olive calmly. “I don’t understand to what you refer,” said Madame looking at her doubtfully. “Mr. Cotterell knew from the outset that I was a married woman. I don’t see the alarmingness of the danger that he might fall in love with me, simply because we talked together. The idea has only struck you in reference to me; it does not seem to have done so with regard to the similar circumstances of you and Ezra.” Madame turned white with anger. “How dare you insult me by such an insinuation?” she exclaimed. “I didn’t dare until after you had first given utterance to the insinuation against me,” replied Olive, with provoking calmness. Madame turned as if she could have struck her, but she controlled herself with a desperate effort. “It seems to me, Sister Olive, that your remarks are very ill-judged,” she said in a voice that shook in spite of her. “I have no wish to bandy words with you. I spoke merely out of a desire to do my duty, and to save you, if possible, from a danger which I imagined I foresaw more clearly than you did. I see that your words were prompted by quite another wish than to seek advice or counsel in a difficult moment.” “I sought for neither advice or counsel,” returned Olive. “I simply wanted to discover, if possible, how to fit the theories of Perfection City, which I know pretty well by heart now, into the practice as applied to me.” Madame looked at her with eyes of anger and even of hate, and Olive, conscious of having been almost more successful than she had imagined possible in argument with so distinguished a mind, returned the look with one suggestive of triumph. Alas for the perfect harmony of Perfection City! “I am surprised, I will not say pained, because you would care little for that, but I am surprised, I repeat, at such words in the mouth of Ezra Weston’s wife. He must have been strangely mistaken in your character, or you cannot have revealed your true self to him, for I cannot imagine him binding himself for life to a mate who scorns and flouts in this manner what he holds so dear. You are mocking the principles to which he has devoted his life. You are too foolish to see what you are doing, but one day you will be punished, and then perhaps you will repent—when it will be too late.” Madame turned and walked rapidly away, leaving Olive feeling very angry and very much frightened as well.