‘Oh men, what were you made for?’ she demanded, half aloud. ‘To be masters of the planet? Then surely your mastership should be characterised by truth and nobility, not vileness and fraud! Surely God originally intended you for better things than to trample under your feet all the weak and helpless, to work ravage on the fairest scenes in nature, and to make miserable wrecks of all the women that love you! Yes, Antinous, I can read in your sculptured face the supreme Egotism of manhood, an Egotism which fate will avenge in its own good time! No wonder so few men are real Christians; it is too sublime and spiritual a creed for the male nature, which is a composition of wild beast and intellectual pagan. Now, what shall be my course of action? Shall I, Delicia, seeing my husband in the mud, go down into the mud also? Or shall I keep clean—not only clean in body but clean in mind? Clean from meanness, clean from falsehood, clean from spite, not only for his sake, but for the sake of my own self-respect? Shall I let things take their course until they culminate of themselves in the pre-ordained catastrophe that always follows evil? Yes, I think I will! Life after all is a shadow; and love, what is it?’ She sighed and shuddered. ‘Less than a shadow, perchance; but there is something in me which must outlast both life and love—something which is the real Delicia, who must hereafter answer to a Supreme Judge for the thoughts which have elevated or degraded her soul!’ She resumed her pacing to and fro. ‘How easy it would be to act like other women!’ she mused; ‘to rant and weep, and hysterically shriek complaints in the ears of “my lord” when he returns to-night; or begin the day to-morrow with fume and fuss as hot and steaming as the boiling water with which I make the breakfast tea! Or to go and grumble to a female _confidante_ who would at once sell her information for five shillings to the most convenient “society journal!” Or to sink right down into the deepest mire of infamy and write anonymous letters to La Marina, daughter of the green-grocer in Eastcheap! Or employ a detective to dodge his movements and hers! Heavens! How low we can fall if we choose! and equally how high we can stand if we determine to take a firm footing on ‘“Some snow-crowned peak, Lofty and glittering in the golden glow Of summer’s ripening splendour.”