How could she weigh this infinitesimal thing in scales where the infinite was piled?
Madge, too; she talked of men making shipwreck of the lives of women, instancing her. But what had been the truth of that story? Had not Madge for years consoled herself for the lack of that which she did not trouble to look for at home? Was it not notorious that Madge And yet Lucia talked of there being one social law for the man, another for the woman! Of course Madge was Lucia's greatest friend; she was right, immensely right, to ignore all that was said about her, and sympathize only with her in the public crash that had resounded through London. But was Lucia so utterly ignorant, so utterly innocent, as to know what everybody really knew about Madge?
Yet—here again the remembrance of Lucia dazzled her—it was glorious of Lucia to utterly shut her ears to it all. She had said it did not concern her: she had had a really serious disagreement with Edgar on tke subject. She had refused to hear things that were dropped from the garret into the gutter, even though they fell on the heads, not of those who sat in the gutter, but were leaning out of the choicest windows on the first floor. Oh, it was a fine attitude; but—but was it an attitude?
Maud's thoughts had rather run away with her, and when thoughts run away with their owner, he often does not quite realize how far they have borne him. But here she looked round, so to speak, and saw a very unfamiliar landscape, a spot from which Lucia was banished. If these thoughts were true, she could have no abiding-place here in Maud's heart, and that was inconceivable. It was inconceivable, not only because Maud could not imagine it happening, but because from the quality of the love she bore Lucia she knew that her friend could not, in the immutable nature of things, be cut off from her. Whatever Lucia thought, she must think it in Maud's heart. That was what love meant: it implied the negation of a separate existence.
How lucky she was! Many, how many, passed through life separate from all their fellows—all those who have never got into the heart of the world; who, though they may have married, happily, even, have never penetrated to the gospel of unity with another; who have always known, always wondered, at the moments of isolation that they sometimes experience! She was luckier; at this moment she could throw away all her criticism of Lucia, deep-felt though it had been, and go deeper yet. She had
