"Listen to me," I repeated, "and come, I beg of you, sit down near me. If you wish to remain silent yourself, at least hear what I have to say."
"I am listening, what have you to say to me?"
"If some one should say to me: 'You are a coward!' I, who am twenty-two years of age and have fought on the field of honor, would throw the taunt back in the teeth of my accuser. Have I not within me the consciousness of what I am? It would be necessary for me to meet my accuser on the field, and play my life against his; why? In order to prove that I am not a coward; otherwise, the world would believe it. That single word demands that reply every time it is spoken, and it matters not by whom."
"It is true; what is your meaning?"
"Women do not fight; but as society is constituted there is no being, of whatever sex, who ought to submit to the indignity involved in an aspersion on all his or her past life, be that life regulated as by a pendulum. Reflect; who escapes that law? There are some, I admit; but what happens? If it is a man, dishonor; if it is a woman, what? Forgiveness. Every one who lives ought to give some evidence of life, some proof of existence. There is, then, for woman as well as for man, a time when an attack must be resented. If she is brave, she rises, announces that she is present, and sits down again. A stroke of the sword is not for her. She must not only avenge herself, but she must make her own weapons. Some one suspects her; who? An outsider? She may hold him in contempt. Her lover whom she loves? If so, it is her life that is in question, and she may not despise him."
"Her only recourse is silence."
"You are wrong, the lover who suspects her casts an aspersion on her entire life, I know it; her plea is her tears, her past life, her devotion and her patience. What will happen if she remains silent? Her lover will lose her by her own act and time will justify her. Is not that your thought?"
"Perhaps; silence before all."
"Perhaps, you say? Assuredly I will lose you if you do not speak; my resolution is made: I am going away alone."
"But, Octave—"