This page has been validated.
48
COMPROMISES
is she now, and what is she going to be?" are the unasked, and certainly unanswerable, questions suggested by every phase of this young woman's development. The bewildered reader, unable to formulate a theory, unable to make even a feeble conjecture, is much impressed by the problem laid before him, and by the acuteness of the author who deciphers it. If to evolve a sphinx and to answer her riddle is to interpret femininity, then there are modern novelists who have entered upon their kingdom. But one remembers Rochefoucauld's wise words: "The greatest mistake of penetration is, not to have fallen short, but to have gone too far."
