s.

"You don't understand the proportion of things," she said slowly.
"You don't realize the comparative ratio of one thing to another.
Any man can give happiness to a woman who loves him--but that's no
bargain! He merely gives her happiness by taking his own. Do you call
that a fair exchange? To you, drunk with romance, perhaps it is. But
in reality it's robbery. He has to pay higher for his pleasures than
that. Why, even the women in the streets, he pays and takes all risks
inclusive? Then what do you think he owes a woman like you? Why, in
the name of God, can't you sweep all this mist away, that's in front
of your eyes, and see it as a transaction? Sign it, seal it, make
a deed of it, and then forget it if you like; but insure yourself
against the worst if it should ever come."

To suppose that this reasoning would appeal to Sally, to expect that
she would assimilate Janet's point of view, adopt Janet's attitude
of mind, is beyond all imagination. The whole aspect that Janet had
revealed, depressed her, weighed--a heavy drag--upon her spirits.
But she was not convinced.

To call things by their names--albeit that language has been evolved
these many thousands of years, and during all that time human beings
have sat in the dust and worked and played with its cunning
symbols--is no easy matter. For the evolution of language has
achieved two ends, and the perfection of it has accomplished the one
as thoroughly as it has the other. With language we give expression
of our feelings; but also with language we have learnt to hide
feelings, cloak thoughts, and dissemble before the very eyes that
know us best. Janet, demanding the truth in all things, seeking in
words the very highest aim of the words themselves, was a far higher
type than Sally.

To Sally, the only means by which she could follow the true bent of
her inclinations, was by wrapping up the matter in a cunning tissue
of words. Herein she is no great woman, loving greatly. She could
not bring herself to think of her position as that of a mistress.
To still love and do that, was beyond her. And so she persisted in
regarding herself as a woman who has faced-out conventionality,
dared the opinion of the world, and chosen to live with a man as his
wife without the condescending sanction of the Church.

It is all pardonable, all this. It is an occurrence as common in big
cities as are the lofty chimneys, and besmirching haze which, on the
horizon, herald the ap