The girl, biting the finger-tip of her white cotton glove, was staring
out at the traffic. Like a pale ray of light entering the now dim cavern
of the old man's mind, the thought came to Creed that he did not quite
understand her. He had in his time had occasion to class many young
persons, and the feeling that he did not quite know her class of person
was like the sensation a bat might have, surprised by daylight.

Suddenly, without saying good-bye to him, she walked away.

'Well,' he thought, looking after her, 'your manners ain't improved
by where you're living, nor your appearance neither, for all your new
clothes.' And for some time he stood thinking of the stare in her eyes
and that abrupt departure.

Through the crystal clearness of the fundamental flux the mind could see
at that same moment Bianca leaving her front gate.

Her sensuous exaltation, her tremulous longing after harmony, had passed
away; in her heart, strangely mingled, were these two thoughts: 'If only
she were a lady!' and, 'I am glad she is not a lady!'

Of all the dark and tortuous places of this life, the human heart is
the most dark and tortuous; and of all human hearts none are less clear,
more intricate than the hearts of all that class of people among whom
Bianca had her being. Pride was a simple quality when joined with a
simple view of life, based on the plain philosophy of property; pride
was no simple quality when the hundred paralysing doubts and aspirations
of a social conscience also hedged it round. In thus going forth with
the full intention of restoring the little model to her position in the