“Of course they are different, though it was apparently only over a matter of practical administration that we fought.” Eppie drew a long breath, opening her eyes. “I shall stay on here this spring--I usually go to my cousin Alicia for the season. But one can’t expect things to go as one wants them unless one keeps one’s hand on the engine most of the time. She has almost a right to consider me a meddling outsider, I suppose. I shall stay on till the end of the summer.” “And smash Miss Grey?” Eppie, aware of his amusement, turned an unresentful glance upon him. “No, don’t think me merely brutally dominant. I really like her. I only want to use her to the best advantage.” At this he broke into a laugh. “Not brutally dominant, I know; but I’m sorry for Miss Grey.” “Miss Grey can well take care of herself, I assure you.” “What else has gone wrong?” Again Eppie chose something less wrong to show him. “The factory where some of my club-girls work has shut down half of its machinery. There will be a great deal of suffering. And we have pulled them above a flippant acceptance of state relief.” “And because you have pulled them up, they are to suffer more?” “Exactly, if you choose to put it so,” said Eppie. He saw that she had determined that he should not frighten her again, or, at all events, that he should never see it if he did frighten her; and he had himself determined that his mist should never again close round her. She should not see, even if she guessed at it pretty clearly, the interpretation that he put upon the afternoon’s frictions and failures, and, on the plane of a matter-of-fact agreement as to practice, he drew her on to talk of her factory-girls, of the standards of wages, the organization of woman’s labor, so that she presently said, “What a pleasure it is to hear you talking sense, Gavan!” “You have heard me talk a great deal of nonsense, I’m sure.” “A great deal. Worse than Basil Mayburn’s.” “I saw too clearly to-day the sorry figure I must have cut in your eyes. I have learned to hold my tongue. When one can only say things that sound particularly silly that is an obvious duty.” “I am glad to hear you use the word, my dear Gavan; use it, even though it means nothing to you. _Glissez mortel, n’appuyez pas_ should be your motto for a time; then, after some wholesome skating about on what seems the deceptive, glittering surface of things you will find, perhaps, that it isn’t an abyss the ice stretches over, but a firm meadow, the ice melted off it and no more need of skates.” He was quite willing that she should so see his case; he was easier to live with, no doubt, on this assumption of his curability. Eppie, still leaning back, still with folded arms, had once more closed her eyes, involuntarily sighing, as though under her own words the haunting echo of the abyss had sounded for her.