always, all the time."

This couplet sprang into her mind from nowhere, and immediately begot an
endless series of similar couplets that she began to compose and address
to Capes. They came teeming distressfully through her aching brain:

"A man can kick, his skirts don't tear;
A man scores always, everywhere.

"His dress for no man lays a snare;
A man scores always, everywhere.
For hats that fail and hats that flare;
Toppers their universal wear;
A man scores always, everywhere.

"Men's waists are neither here nor there;
A man scores always, everywhere.

"A man can manage without hair;
A man scores always, everywhere.

"There are no males at men to stare;
A man scores always, everywhere.

"And children must we women bear--

"Oh, damn!" she cried, as the hundred-and-first couplet or so presented
itself in her unwilling brain.

For a time she worried about that compulsory bath and cutaneous
diseases.

Then she fell into a fever of remorse for the habit of bad language she
had acquired.

"A man can smoke, a man can swear;
A man scores always, everywhere."

She rolled over on her face, and stuffed her fingers in her ears to shut
out the rhythm from her mind. She lay still for a long time, and her
mind resumed at a more tolerable pace. She found herself talking to
Capes in an undertone of rational admission.

"There is something to be said for the lady-like theory after all," she
admitted. "Women ought to be gentle and submissive persons, strong only
in virtue and in resistance to evil compulsion. My dear--I can call you
that here, anyhow--I know that. The Victorians over-did it a little, I
admit. Their idea of maidenly innocence was just a blank white--the sort
of flat white that doesn't shine. But that doesn't alter the fact
that there IS innocence. And I've read, and thought, and guessed, and
looked--until MY innocence--it's smirched.

"Smirched!...

"You see, dear, one IS passionately anxious for something--what is it?
One wants to be CLEAN. You want me to be clean. You would want me to be
clean, if you gave me a thought, that is....

"I wonder if you give me a thought....

"I'm not a good woman. I don't mean I'm not a good woman--I mean that
I'm not a GOOD woman. My poor brain is so mixed, dear, I hardly know
what I am saying. I mean I'm not a good specimen of a woman. I've got a
streak of male. Things happen to wo