iples can possibly be involved in going against the law?"

"And where the law is unjust?"

Stanley was startled, but he said: "Remember that your principles, as
you call them, may hurt other people besides yourself; Tod and your
children most of all. How is the law unjust, may I ask?"

She had been sitting at the table opposite, but she got up now and
went to the hearth. For a woman of forty-two--as he supposed she would
be--she was extraordinarily lithe, and her eyes, fixed on him from under
those twitching, wavy brows, had a curious glow in their darkness. The
few silver threads in the mass of her over-fine black hair seemed to
give it extra vitality. The whole of her had a sort of intensity that
made him profoundly uncomfortable. And he thought suddenly: 'Poor old
Tod! Fancy having to go to bed with that woman!'

Without raising her voice, she began answering his question.

"These poor people have no means of setting law in motion, no means of
choosing where and how they will live, no means of doing anything except
just what they are told; the Mallorings have the means to set the law in
motion, to choose where and how to live, and to dictate to others. That
is why the law is unjust. With every independent pound a year, this
equal law of yours--varies!"

"Phew!" said Stanley. "That's a proposition!"

"I give you a simple case. If I had chosen not to marry Tod but to live
with him in free love, we could have done it without inconvenience. We
have some independent income; we could have afforded to disregard what
people thought or did. We could have bought (as we did buy) our piece of
land and our cottage, out of which we could not have been turned. Since
we don't care for society, it would have made absolutely no difference
to our present position. But Tryst, who does not even want to defy the
law--what happens to him? What happens to hundreds of laborers all over
the country who venture to differ in politics, religion, or morals from
those who own them?"

'By George!' thought Stanley, 'it's true, in a way; I never looked at it
quite like that.' But the feeling that he had come to persuade her to
be reasonable, and the deeply rooted Englishry of him, conspired to make
him say:

"That's all very well; but, you see, it's only a necessary incident of
property-holding. You can't interfere with plain rights."

"You mean--an evil inherent in property-holding?"

"If you like; I don't split words. The lesser of two