“No, not a bit! That’s just the worst of it! See here, you dear, kind woman!--here I am; a bought ‘subject’ for Dr. Féodor to try his skill upon. He told me plainly enough on one occasion that it wouldn’t matter and couldn’t be helped if I died under his treatment--and I quite agreed with him. Up to the present I’m not dead and don’t feel like dying--but I’m _hardening_! Yes! that’s it! Steadily, slowly hardening! Not in my muscles--not in my arteries--no!--but in my sentiments and emotions which are becoming positively _nil_!” Her merry laugh rang out again, and her eyes sparkled with amusement. “But what a good thing it is, after all! Men are so fond of telling one that they hate ‘emotions’--so it’s just as well to be without them! Now, for instance, I’m having a splendid time here--I love all the exercise in the open air, the skating, tobogganing, and dancing in the evening,--it’s all great fun, but I don’t ‘feel’ that it _is_ as splendid as it _seems_! Men flatter me every day,--they say ‘How well you skate!’ or ‘How well you dance!’ ‘How well you play!’ or even ‘How charming you look!’ and if such things had been said to me in England six months ago I should have been so happy and at ease that I should never have been afraid and awkward as I generally was in society--but now! Why now I simply don’t care!--I only think what fools men are!” “But you must remember,” said Madame Dimitrius gently--“you were very different in appearance six months ago to what you are now----” “Exactly! That’s just it!” And Diana gave an expressive gesture of utter disdain. “That’s what I hate and despise! One is judged by looks only. I’m just the same woman as ever--six months ago I danced as well, skated as well, and played the piano as well as I do now--but no one ever gave me the smallest encouragement! Now everything I do is made the subject of exaggerated compliment, by the men of course!--not by the women; _they_ always hate a successful rival of their own sex! Ah, how petty and contemptible it all is! You see I’m growing young looks with old experience!--rather a dangerous combination of forces, _I_ think!--however, if our souls become angels when we die, _they_ will have a vast experience to look back upon, dating from the beginning of creation!” “And, looking back so far, they will understand all,” said Madame Dimitrius. “As one of our great writers has said: ‘To know all is to pardon all.’” Diana shrugged her shoulders. “Perhaps!” she carelessly conceded. “But that’s just where I should fail as an angel! I cannot ‘pardon all.’ I hold a standing grudge against injustice, callousness, cruelty and cowardice. I forgive none of these things. I loathe a hypocrite--especially a pious one! I should take pleasure in revenge of some sort on any such loathsome creature. I would rather save a fly from drowning in the milk-jug than a treacherous human being from the gallows!”