Athalie

What was he to do? An ugly, hunted look came into his face and he

swung around and faced the girl beside him: "Athalie," he said, "will you go away with me and let them howl?"

"Dearest, how silly. I'll stay here with you and let them howl."

"I don't want you to face it--"

"I shall not turn my back on it. Oh, Clive, there are so many more

important things than what people may say about us!"

"You can't defy the world!"

"I'm not going to, darling. But I may possibly shock a few of the more

orthodox parasites that infest it."

"No girl can maintain that attitude."

"A girl can try.... And, if law and malice force me to become your

mistress, malice and law may answer for it; not I!"

"I shall have to answer for it."

"Dearest," she said with smiling tenderness, "you are still very, very

orthodox in your faith in folk-ways. That need not cause me any

concern, however. But, Clive, of the two pictures which seems

reasonable--your wife who is no wife; your mistress who is more and is

considered less?

"Don't think that I am speaking lightly of wifehood.... I desire it as

I desire motherhood. I was made for both. If the world will let me I

shall be both wife and mother. But if the world interferes to stultify

me, then, nevertheless I shall still be both, and the law can keep the

title it refuses me. I deny the right of man to cripple, mar, render

sterile my youth and womanhood. I deny the right of the world to

forbid me love, and its expression, as long as I harm no one by

loving. Clive, it would take a diviner law than man's notions of

divinity, to kill in me the right to live and love and bring the

living into life. And if I am forbidden to do it in the name of the

law, then I dare do it in the name of One who never turned his back on

little children--"

She ceased abruptly; and he saw her eyes suddenly blinded by tears: "Oh, Clive--if you only could have seen them--the little flower-like

faces and pleading arms around--my--neck--warm--Oh, sweet!--sweet

against my breast--"