‘It is because we are kept under lock and key that we don’t care what we do. We feel we are unjustly treated, and that we have a perfect right to cheat, and lie, and prevaricate. It is the only means of retaliation we have. Oh, I wonder if the time will ever come when we shall get fair play.’ ‘No, it will not; I can tell you that much. No man or woman, from the Queen down to the beggar who spends the night on a doorstep, gets fair play. There isn’t a single human being in all the world who hasn’t been kept back from doing all he might by other people, or by circumstances of one sort or another. This place is meant for a struggle; and the only way to get through it comfortably is to cultivate a taste for struggling.’ ‘I’m sure you know you needn’t say that to me, Mr. Clausen.’ ‘Yes, you struggle a little--too much, in fact; for the secret of all success is to discern the difference between the possible and the impossible. Turn your back on the impossible, and make steadily for the possible.’ ‘O Mr. Clausen, how wise you sound now! I wish I had been there to see when you were young.’ ‘I wish you had. You would no doubt have found me quite foolish enough to please you then.’ ‘And did you turn your back on the impossible?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘And are you glad you did?’ ‘No.’ ‘Ah, I knew that.’ ‘It is perfectly true, a temptation resisted gives you no pleasure; but that does not prevent a temptation yielded to giving you an inevitable retribution.’ ‘Oh, that sounds so like a copy-book, I am sure it can’t be true.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘Mr. Clausen, can’t you understand what it is when a girl grows up and finds out bit by bit everything she has been taught and told is a pack of lies.’ ‘But surely your mother----’ ‘No, no, it isn’t my mother; it’s the governesses, it’s the nurses, it’s the silly novels, it’s other girls. It makes me shudder when I think what a world of shams I’m living in, and what a sham I am myself.’ ‘My dear child, I fear I have only one consolation to offer you, and that is, that you would shudder a good deal more if you for one moment saw the truths which underlie these shams.’ ‘You talk as if the world was a pest-house. Surely we are some of us beautiful; we are not all diseased and horrible.’ ‘One hears a good deal about the beauty of life; but I am very much afraid you will find in the long run that the beauty of life is like the beauty of a lady’s complexion--very fleeting, or else sham.’ ‘There I have cornered you, Mr. Clausen. There’s a beauty about a gypsy’s skin which isn’t fleeting, and which is very real; and it is beautiful, just because it is exposed to the sun and the rain. In a word, freedom is beauty, and gives beauty.’ ‘Well, perhaps there’s something in what you say; but I don’t think you’d find gypsies very satisfactory companions at close quarters.’ ‘I should like to get a chance of seeing for myself.’