Josephine did not answer this. She looked at Hazel, and then her look wandered to somewhat else; undeclarative, withdrawn into herself. 'Josephine, you cannot have what does not belong to you, any more in men than in money. And if you try to give away what belongs to somebody else, nobody but a wretch will take it.' 'You are going to give me a moral lecture, because I came to Mrs. Rhodes on a spree?' said Josephine, with a superficial kind of little laugh. 'Isn't my time my own while Mr. Charteris is away?' 'No, it is not. Not to spend in a way that wrongs him. And you are not your own, wherever he is.' 'You think I am a man's property just because I am married to him! I don't. I think the man and the woman are equal, and both of them are free. It is only among savages that women are slaves.' Hazel let that pass. Keeping her folded hands on Josephine's lap, she looked down, thinking. 'What sort of life have you led with Mr. Charteris so far?' she said, not raising her eyes. 'Can you picture it for me?' 'Picture it!'—Josephine put up her lip, and then she laughed with seeming amusement. 'Did you ever see two chickens pulling at the two ends of a worm? That's about it. John pulled one way, and I pulled the other. Pleasant picture, isn't it? But that sort of thing can't last forever.' 'No,' said Wych Hazel looking suddenly up,—'but this _does_. A life ignored by all respectable people; a name spurned with the foot and scorned on the tongue. A dark spot, which only forgetfulness can hide,—and which nobody ever forgets! That other sort of thing does end, Josephine, with death, or with patient endeavour; but _this_ thing, never!' 'You talk'—said Josephine pouting. Then she suddenly broke out, with her eyes full upon Hazel's face. 'Don't you think, if you had never been happy in your life, you would like to try just for a little how it feels?' 'Yes,' said Wych Hazel, 'but you are going to try misery;—and not for a little.' 'I am not trying misery here,' said the girl with a shrug of her shoulders. 'I tell you, it's jolly. How did you know where to find me?' 'There is a fair view, quite often, from the place where one step towards it plunges you down thousands of feet. When you are left alone in Lisbon—and dare not come home to America—_then_ you will learn what misery is.' Josephine started a little, and for once her colour stirred. Words did not come readily. When they came, they were a somewhat haughty enquiry what Hazel meant? 'Just what I say,' Hazel answered quietly. 'Did you come here to say it?' 'Yes.' 'That's Annabella. Well,—I don't care. You know about it. You know I can't live with Charteris.' 'Josephine, you _must_.' 'I _cannot_. You can't tell how it is. He don't care for me, and I don't like him; and I don't think, for my part, it is religious for people to live together that don't like each other.'