history, and you will see. They had
their loves, their mistresses. Read the newspapers, and you will find
out whether they respect it to-day. But they are very anxious to have
you and me respect it and all the other Christian commandments, because
they will prevent us from being discontented. They say that we must be
satisfied with the situation in this world in which God has placed us,
and we shall have our reward in the next."

She shivered slightly, not only at the ideas thus abruptly enunciated,
but because it occurred to her that those others must be taking for
granted a certain relationship between herself and Rolfe.... But
presently, when the supper arrived, these feelings changed. She was very
hungry, and the effect of the food, of the hot coffee was to dispel her
doubt and repugnance, to throw a glamour over the adventure, to restore
to Rolfe's arguments an exciting and alluring appeal. And with renewed
physical energy she began to experience once more a sense of fellowship
with these free and daring spirits who sought to avenge her wrongs and
theirs.

"For us who create there are no rules of conduct, no conventions," Rolfe
was saying, "we do not care for the opinions of the middle class, of the
bourgeois. With us men and women are on an equality. It is fear that
has kept the workers down, and now we have cast that off--we know our
strength. As they say in Italy, il mondo e a chi se lo piglia, the world
belongs to him who is bold."

"Italian is a beautiful language," she exclaimed.

"I will teach you Italian," he said.

"I want to learn--so much!" she sighed.

"Your soul is parched," he said, in a commiserating tone. "I will water
it, I will teach you everything." His words aroused a faint, derisive
echo: Ditmar had wish to teach her, too! But now she was strongly under
the spell of the new ideas hovering like shining, gossamer spirits just
beyond her reach, that she sought to grasp and correlate. Unlike the
code which Rolfe condemned, they seemed not to be separate from
life, opposed to it, but entered even into that most important of its
elements, sex. In deference to that other code Ditmar had made her his
mistress, and because he was concerned for his position and the security
of the ruling class had sought to hide the fact.... Rolfe, with a
cigarette between his red lips, sat back in his chair, regarding with
sensuous enjoyment the evident effect of his arguments.

"But love?" she interrupted, when