"It seems to me that we girls have no field nowadays," said she, rather irrelevantly.
"I would give anything I possess to be able to do anything for anybody," began Leonora. "We know so much about life in theory, and we know nothing about it in practice. I wish mamma would even let me order the dinner sometimes; it would be something. But of course it is all an illusion, and nothing, and very infinite."
Poor Miss Carnethy turned on her pillow with a dreary look in her eyes.
"It will be different when you are married, dear," suggested one.
"But can you not see," objected Miss Carnethy, "that we shall never marry men whose ideas are so high and beautiful as ours? And then, to be tied forever to some miserable creature! Fancy not being understood! What do these wretched society men care about the really great questions of life?"
"Nothing, nothing, nothing!" cried Miss Carnethy in real distress.
"And yet it would be dreadful to be an old maid"--
"Perfectly dreadful, of course!" exclaimed all three, in a breath. Then there was a short silence, during which Leonora moved uneasily, and finally sat up, her heavy red hair falling all about her.
"By the bye," she said at last, "have you been out to-day, dears? What have you been doing? Tell me all about it."
"We have been to Lady Smyth-Tompkins's tea. It was very empty."
"You mean very hollow, for there were many people there."
"Yes," said the other, "it was very hollow--empty--everything of that sort. Then we went to drive on the Pincio."
"Yes. We saw Carantoni leaning against a post. I am sure he was thinking of nothing. He looks just like a stuffed glove,--such an inane dandy!"
Miss Carnethy's blue eyes suddenly looked as though they were conscious of something more than mere emptiness in the world. Her strong, well-shaped red lips set themselves like a bent bow, and the shaft was not long in flying.
"He is very pleasant to talk to," said she, "and besides--he really dances beautifully." It was probably a standing grievance with her two friends that Marcantonio did not dance with them, or Leonora could scarcely have produced such an impression in so few words.
"What does he talk about?" asked one, with an affectation of indifference.