"I wouldn't ask you for those," Alan answered, carried away by the

torrent flood of her passionate speech. "I would wish you to guard

them. But, Herminia, just as a matter of form,--to prevent the

world from saying the cruel things the world is sure to say,--and

as an act of justice to you, and your children! A mere ceremony of

marriage; what more does it mean now-a-days than that we two agree

to live together on the ordinary terms of civilized society?"

Still Herminia shook her head. "No, no," she cried vehemently. "I

deny and decline those terms; they are part and parcel of a system

of slavery. I have learnt that the righteous soul should avoid all

appearance of evil. I will not palter and parley with the unholy

thing. Even though you go to a registry-office and get rid as far

as you can of every relic of the sacerdotal and sacramental idea,

yet the marriage itself is still an assertion of man's supremacy

over woman. It ties her to him for life, it ignores her

individuality, it compels her to promise what no human heart can be

sure of performing; for you can contract to do or not to do, easily

enough, but contract to feel or not to feel,--what transparent

absurdity! It is full of all evils, and I decline to consider it.

If I love a man at all, I must love him on terms of perfect

freedom. I can't bind myself down to live with him to my shame one

day longer than I love him; or to love him at all if I find him

unworthy of my purest love, or unable to retain it; or if I

discover some other more fit to be loved by me. You admitted the

other day that all this was abstractly true; why should you wish

this morning to draw back from following it out to its end in

practice?"

Alan was only an Englishman, and shared, of course, the inability

of his countrymen to carry any principle to its logical conclusion.

He was all for admitting that though things must really be so, yet

it were prudent in life to pretend they were otherwise. This is

the well-known English virtue of moderation and compromise; it has

made England what she is, the shabbiest, sordidest, worst-organized

of nations. So he paused for a second and temporized. "It's for

your sake, Herminia," he said again; "I can't bear to think of your

making yourself a martyr. And I don't see how, if you act as you

propose, you could escape martyrdom."




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