To Edith the dinner was a revelation of new difficulties in the life she proposed for herself, though they were rather felt than distinctly reasoned about. The social atmosphere was distasteful; its elements were out of harmony with her ideals. Not that this society was new to her, but that she saw it in a new light. Before her marriage all these things had been indifferent to this high-spirited girl. They were merely incidents of the social state into which she was born, and she pursued her way among them, having a tolerably clear conception of what her own life should be, with little recognition of their tendencies. Were only her own life concerned, they would still be indifferent to her. But something had happened. That which is counted the best thing in life had come to her, that best thing which is the touchstone of character as it is of all conditions, and which so often introduces inextricable complications. She had fallen in love with Jack Delancy and married him. The first effect of this was to awake and enlarge what philosophers would call her enthusiasm of humanity. The second effect was to show her--and this was what this little dinner emphasized--that she had put limitations upon herself and taken on unthought-of responsibilities. To put this sort of life one side, or make it secondary to her own idea of a useful and happy life, would have been easy but for one thing--she loved Jack. This philosophic reasoning about it does her injustice. It did not occur to her that she could go her way and let him go his way. Nor must it be supposed that the problem seemed as grave to her as it really was--the danger of frittering away her own higher nature in faithfulness to one of the noblest impulses of that nature. Yet this is the way that so many trials of life come, and it is the greatest test of character. She felt--as many women do feel--that if she retained her husband's love all would be well, and the danger involved to herself probably did not cross her mind. But what did cross her mind was that these associations meant only evil for Jack, and that to be absorbed in the sort of life that seemed to please him was for her to drift away from all her ideals. A confused notion of all this was in her thoughts when she talked with Father Damon, while the gentlemen were in the smoking-room. She asked him about his mission. “The interest continues,” he replied; “but your East Side, Mrs. Delancy, is a puzzling place.” “How so?” “Perhaps you'll laugh if I say there is too much intelligence.” Edith did laugh, and then said: “Then you'd better move your mission over to this side. Here is a field of good, unadulterated worldliness. But what, exactly, do you mean?” “Well, the attempt of science to solve the problem of sin and wretchedness. What can you expect when the people are socialists and their leaders agnostics?” “But I thought you were something of a socialist yourself!”