"That does not make it easier for you." Alice, large and fair in her white draperies, towered over Margaret Edes like an embodied conscience.

She was almost unendurable, like the ideal of which the other woman had fallen short.

Her mere presence was maddening.

Margaret actually grimaced at her.
"It is easy for you to preach," said she, "very easy, Alice Mendon.
You have not a nerve in your whole body.

You have not an ungratified ambition.