Traill, undressing below, heard it. With a muttered exclamation, he dragged his shirt over his head and flung it violently into the corner of the room amongst the bundle of dirty linen. END OF BOOK II BOOK III DERELICT CHAPTER I Virtue is the personality of many women. Rob them of it, those of them whose value it enhances, and you prize a jewel from its setting, you wrench a star out of the mystery of the heavens and bring it down to earth. It is a common trend of the mind in these modern days to make nobility out of the women whose personality needs no virtue to lift it to a pedestal of fame. But really, it is they who make the nobility for themselves. Phryne of Athens, Helen of Troy, Catherine of Russia, Mary of Scotland--these are women who have ennobled themselves without aid of eulogy. Personality has been theirs without necessity for the robe of virtue to grace them in the eyes of the world. But with the seemingly lesser women, the women of seemingly no vast account--with those whose whole individuality depends upon the invaluable possession of their virtue, no great epic can well be sung, no loud paean sounded. You may find just a lyric here, a rondel there, set to the lilt of a phrase in an idle hour and sung in a passing moment to send a tired heart asleep. But that is all. Yet they are the women upon whom the world has spent six thousand years in the making; they are the women at whose breasts are fed the sons of men. The whole race has been weaned by them; every country has been nursed into manhood in their arms. But they are too normal or they are too much a class to have men sing of them. There is not one mother of children in the vast calendars of history who stands out now for our eyes to reverence. Upon the stage of the world their part is played, and what eye is there can grasp in comprehensive glance the whole broad sweep of power which their frail hands have wielded? Only upon that mimic platform of fame, raised where the eyes of all can watch the figure as it treads the boards, have women stood apart where the recorder can jot their names upon a scroll of history for the world to read. There is no virtue essential here; virtue indeed but adds a glamour with its absence. There is some subtle attraction in a Catherine of Russia or a Manon Lescaut which tempts the cunning lust of men to cry their praise for the nobility of heart that lies beneath. But what elusive charm is there in the mother of children whose stainless virtue is her only personality? None? Yet to the all-seeing eye, to the all-comprehending brain--to that omniscience whom some call God, be it in Trinity or in Unity, and others know not what to call--these are the women who lift immeasurably above fame, infinitely above repute.