“Very sketchily,” confessed Freda, “I can cook better than I clear up, mother tells me.” “That may be a virtue,” said Helen. She stood leaning against the door, watching Freda. “Who reads poetry with you?” “Father--sometimes. Oh, you mustn’t think because you see some things I’m reading that I’m that sort. I’m not at all. I’m really not clever especially. I just like things. All kinds of things.” “But what kinds?” “Just so they are alive, that’s all I care. So I scatter--awfully. I can’t get very much worked up about women in politics. It seems to me as if women were wasting a lot of time sometimes.” “You are like me--a natural born dilettante.” “Are you that?” asked Freda. Her shyness had gone. Here was some one to whom she could talk. “I’m afraid I am. I like things just as you do--if they’re alive. It’s a bad way to be. It’s hard to concentrate because some new beautiful thing or emotion keeps dragging you off and destroys your continuity. And in this world of earnest women--” “You criticize yourself. You feel that you don’t measure up to the women who do things. I know. But don’t you think, Mrs. Flandon, that something’s being lost somewhere? Aren’t women losing--oh, the quality that made poets write such things about them--I don’t know, it’s partly physical--they aren’t relaxed--” She stood, pouring her words out in unfinished phrases as if trying desperately to make a confession or ask her questions before anything interrupted, her face lit up with eagerness, its fine, unfinished beauty diffused with half-felt desires. As she stopped, Helen let her stop, only nodding. “I know what you mean. You’re right. It’s all mixed up. It’s what is puzzling the men too. We must talk, my dear.” Helen was quite honest about that. She meant to talk with Freda. But there was no time that afternoon. In the Library club-room, crowded with women who had come at Mrs. Thorstad’s bidding for a “fresh inspiration,” Helen found her hands full. She gave her talk, toning it up a bit because she saw that Freda was expecting things of her and so wandering off the point a little. But the charm that Margaret wanted was in action and Margaret, quickly sensing the possibilities of Mrs. Thorstad’s town, settled down to some thorough organization work. It was after the meeting that night that Helen saw Freda again. And then not in the hall. She had noticed the girl slip out after her own talk, as Mrs. Brownley rose to “address” the meeting, and wondered where she was going. To her discomfiture she had found that she was billeted on Mrs. Watson for the night as befitted their respective social dignities, and that Margaret was to spend the night at the Thorstad house. But it was from Mrs. Watson’s spare room window that she saw Freda.