l'amour, et les moralistes l'adultere!' Leo, there is a moral
somnambulism more frightful than that which leads to midnight
promenades on the combs of roofs, and the borders of Goat Island; so I
wiped my tears away, and after that day, began to read the billet doux
and wear the flowers of my 'consolation prize'."

"You do not love him, and your marriage will degrade you in your own
estimation. Your bridal vows will be perjury, an insult to your God,
and a foul terrible wrong against the man who trusts your truthfulness.
According to our church, wedlock is a 'holy ordinance'; and to me an
unloving wife is unhallowed; is a blot on her sex, only a few degrees
removed from unmarried mothers. You know the difference between
friendship and love, and when you go to the altar, and give the former
in exchange for the latter, the base counterfeit for the true gold, you
are consciously and premeditatedly dishonest."

"Thanks, for your clearness of diction, your perspicuity which leaves
no cobweb of misty doubt wherewith to drape my shivering moral
deformity! To 'see ourselves as others see us' is as disappointing as
the result of plunging one's hand into the 'grab-bag', but at least it
brings the stimulating tingle of a new sensation. Suppose each knows
perfectly well that as regards the true gold, both are equally
bankrupt? There is a queer moral fungus called 'honesty among thieves',
and we both know that we never sang snatches from Offenbach to each
other, through pink 'bisc' lips. He loved quite desperately a mignonne
of a blonde, with heavenly blue eyes and cherubic yellow hair, who, not
knowing his expectations from a California uncle, jilted him for a rich
Cuban. Look you, Leo, because I cannot wear Kohinoor, must I disport
myself without any diamond necklace? Since he can never own 'La
Peregrina,' must he eschew pearl studs in his shield front? We
distinctly understand that we are not first prizes; but perhaps we may
be something better than total blanks in the lottery, even though we
quite realize the difference between love and friendship. Do you?
Portia should know every jot and tittle of the law, and all the subtle
shades of evidence, before she lifts her voice in court."

Alma pushed away her cushion, sat upright, and the slumbering fire
flashed up under her jet lashes.

"If I do, that knowledge which earlier or later comes to all women, is
certainly linked with the comforting consciousness that I can trust
mysel