The man gazed at her in surprise. Though he was prepared for much,
he was scarcely prepared for such devotion to principle. "Oh,
Herminia," he cried, "you can't mean it. You can't have thought of
what it entails. Surely, surely, you won't carry your ideas of
freedom to such an extreme, such a dangerous conclusion!"
Herminia looked up at him, half hurt. "Can't have thought of what
it entails!" she repeated. Her dimples deepened. "Why, Alan,
haven't I had my whole lifetime to think of it? What else have I
thought about in any serious way, save this one great question of a
woman's duty to herself, and her sex, and her unborn children?
It's been my sole study. How could you fancy I spoke hastily, or
without due consideration on such a subject? Would you have me
like the blind girls who go unknowing to the altar, as sheep go to
the shambles? Could you suspect me of such carelessness?--such
culpable thoughtlessness?--you, to whom I have spoken of all this
so freely?"
Alan stared at her, disconcerted, hardly knowing how to answer.
"But what alternative do you propose, then?" he asked in his
amazement.
"Propose?" Herminia repeated, taken aback in her turn. It all
seemed to her so plain, and transparent, and natural. "Why, simply
that we should be friends, like any others, very dear, dear
friends, with the only kind of friendship that nature makes
possible between men and women."
She said it so softly, with some womanly gentleness, yet with such
lofty candor, that Alan couldn't help admiring her more than ever
before for her translucent simplicity, and directness of purpose.
Yet her suggestion frightened him. It was so much more novel to
him than to her. Herminia had reasoned it all out with herself, as
she truly said, for years, and knew exactly how she felt and
thought about it. To Alan, on the contrary, it came with the shock
of a sudden surprise, and he could hardly tell on the spur of the
moment how to deal with it. He paused and reflected. "But do you
mean to say, Herminia," he asked, still holding that soft brown
hand unresisted in his, "you've made up your mind never to marry
any one? made up your mind to brave the whole mad world, that can't
possibly understand the motives of your conduct, and live with some
friend, as you put it, unmarried?"
"Yes, I've made up my mind," Herminia answered, with a faint tremor
in her maidenly voice, but with hardly a trace now of a traitorous
blush, where no blush was needed. "I've made up my mind, Alan; and
from all we had said and talked over together, I thought you at
least would sympathize in my resolve."