“But I love them--I go to them for comfort and help. I have them all--on a shelf near my bed--a whole row of my favourites--Browning, and Meredith--and Ibsen. I am a great Ibsenite--are not you?” “It is very fashionable!” “Oh! but really, don’t you think--?” She was becoming quite incoherent in her excitement. “Now, Nora in the ‘Doll’s House’?--It is the story of so many of us. Only it is a mistake of Ibsen to make the husband a cheat--that seems to put him too much in the wrong, he is wrong enough, without that. Oh, Nora was so right to leave him, I think. So strong! Do you know the sound of the house door banging in that play stirs me like the sound of a trumpet?” “You should write a book yourself!” suggested Egidia, indulgently, knowing well the answer she would receive. “Ah! I haven’t time. But if I did, I could put in things--things that have happened to me--experience--more of feeling than of incident, perhaps. I was an only daughter; my father was in the army; I travelled a good deal; but I have not had a life of adventure; I married when I was seventeen. My husband was a widower then, and his son, Charles, lives with us--and his aunt, Mrs. Poynder.” She had an involuntary little shudder. “He is a solicitor; you know that. And he has a huge practice. He is very much occupied, and takes no interest in the things you and I care about. Of course, he laughs at me for my--enthusiasms--but I should die if I didn’t.” There were tears in her eyes. “Some day, if you will, you must come and stop with me in town,” said Egidia, in an access of womanly compassion for this somewhat ungrammatical but sincere tale of misfortune. “Shall I? Shall I? Oh, how lovely that would be!” Her brilliant smile came out again. “To see--to have a glimpse of all those wonderful literary people in whose company your life is spent.” “Well, I happen to know more of artists than I do of literary people,” said Egidia. “You see, my own ‘shop’ bores me. Do you collect--I am sure you do?” She had seen the unmistakable flame of the autograph-fever leap into Mrs. Elles’ eyes. “I can send you some, if you like. I have one in my pocket now that I can give you, from Edmund Rivers, the landscape painter.” “The R. A.?” Mrs. Elles, who always took care to have a Royal Academy Catalogue sent up to her every year, and learnt it by heart, enquired eagerly. “Yes, the R. A. and my second cousin!” Egidia answered, carelessly pulling a crumpled note out of her pocket and handing it to Mrs. Elles. “Read it!”