ld acknowledge it as a duty, if I did not welcome it as a joy."

"In other words, you would accept the position of a slave."

"How so?"

"By bartering your womanhood, by using these powers of body, in return
for food and shelter and social favour, or for the sake of so-called
'duty' irrespective of--perhaps in direct opposition to your feelings.
How then do you differ from the slave woman who produces a progeny of
young slaves, to be disposed of as shall seem good to her perhaps
indulgent master? I see no essential difference."

"I see the difference between honour and ignominy," said Henriette.
Hadria shook her head, sadly.

"The differences are all in detail and in circumstance. I am sorry if I
offend your taste. The facts are offensive. The bewildering thing is
that the facts themselves never seem to offend you; only the mention of
them."

"It would take too long to go into this subject," said Henriette. "I can
only repeat that I fail to understand your extraordinary views of the
holiest of human instincts."

"_That_ catch-word! And you use it rashly, Henriette, for do you not
know that the deepest of all degradation comes of misusing that which is
most holy?"

"A woman who does her duty is not to be accused of misusing anything,"
cried Miss Temperley hotly.

"Is there then no sin, no misuse of power in sending into the world
swarms of fortuitous, poverty-stricken human souls, as those souls must
be who are born in bondage, with the blended instincts of the slave and
the master for a proud inheritance? It sounds awful I know, but truth is
apt to sound awful. Motherhood, as our wisdom has appointed it, among
civilized people, represents a prostitution of the reproductive powers,
which precisely corresponds to that other abuse, which seems to most of
us so infinitely more shocking."

Miss Temperley preferred not to reply to such a remark, and the entrance
of little Martha relieved the tension of the moment. Henriette, though
she bore the child a grudge, could not resist her when she came forward
and put up her face to be kissed.

"She is really growing very pretty," said Henriette, in a tone which
betrayed the agitation which she had been struggling to hide.

Martha ran for her doll and her blue man, and was soon busy at play, in
a corner of the room, building Eiffel Towers out of stone bricks, and
knocking them down again.

"I don't yet quite understand, Henriette, your object in coming to
Paris." Had