ar as I
can, I undo it by leaving you. Perhaps," she added, "you could divorce
me. That would set you free."

The remark in its childishness, callousness, and considerateness struck
him as one of the most revealing she had made. He laughed icily. "Our
laws only allow of divorce for one cause and I advise you not to seek
freedom for yourself--or for me--by disgracing yourself. It's not worth
it. The conventions you scorn have their solid value."

She had now turned her head and was looking at him. "I think you are
insulting me," she said.

For the first time he observed a trembling in her voice and interpreted
it as anger. It gave him a hurting satisfaction to have made her angry.
She had appalled and shattered him.

"I am not insulting you, I am warning you, Karen," he said. "A woman who
can behave as you are behaving is capable of acts of criminal folly. You
don't believe in convention, and in your guardian's world you will meet
many men who don't."

"What do you mean by criminal folly?"

"I mean living with a man you're not married to."

He had simply and sincerely forgotten something. Karen's face grew
ashen.

"You mean that my mother was a criminal?"

Even at this moment of his despair Gregory was horribly sorry. Yet the
memory that she recalled brought a deeper fear for her future. He had
spoken with irony of her suggestion about divorce and freedom. But did
not her very blood, as well as her environment, give him reason to
emphasise his warning?

"I didn't mean that. I wasn't thinking of that," he said, "as you must
know. And to be criminally foolish is a very different thing from being
a criminal. But I'm convinced that to break social laws--and these laws
about men and women have deeper than merely social sanctions--to break
them, I'm convinced, can bring no happiness. I feel about your mother,
and what she did--I say it with all reverence--that she was as mistaken
as she was unfortunate. And I beg of you, Karen, never to follow her
example."

"It is not for you to speak of her!" Karen said, not moving from her
place but uttering the words with a still and sudden passion that he had
never heard from her. "It is not for you to preach sermons to me on the
text of my mother's misfortunes. I do not call them misfortunes--nor did
she. I do not accept your laws, and she was not afraid of them. How dare
you call her unfortunate? She lost nothing that she valued and she
gained great happiness, and gave it