“Let us not make it personal,” she said; “I admitted, that these things belong to our common nature, and I do not of course except myself. But I repeat that marriage is a convention, and—I am not conventional.”
“As to that,” I retorted, “all the things that pertain to civilization, all the steps which have ever been taken in the direction of progress, are conventions: our clothing, our houses, our religions, arts, our good manners. And we are bound to accept every ‘convention’ that makes for the betterment of society, as though it were a revelation from God.”
I confess that this thought was the fruit of my brief intercourse with the Caskians, who hold that there is a divine power continually operating upon human consciousness,—not disclosing miracles, but enlarging and perfecting human perceptions. I was thinking of this when Elodia suddenly put the question to me:
“Are you married?”
“No, I am not,” I replied. The inquiry was not agreeable to me; it implied that she had been hitherto altogether too indifferent as to my “eligibility,”—never having concerned herself to ascertain the fact before.
“Well, you are perhaps older than I am,” she said, “and you have doubtless had amours?”
I was as much astounded by the frankness of this inquiry as you can be, and blushed like a girl. She withdrew her eyes from my face with a faint smile and covered the question by another:
“You intend to marry, I suppose?”
“I do, certainly,” I replied, the resolution crystallizing on the instant.
She drew a long sigh. “Well, I do not, I am so comfortable as I am.” She patted the ground with her slipper toe. “I do not wish to impose new conditions upon myself. I simply accept my life as it comes to me. Why should I voluntarily burden myself with a family, and all the possible cares and sorrows which attend the marriage state! If I cast a prophetic eye into the future, what am I likely to see?—Let us say, a lovely daughter dying of some frightful malady; an idolized son squandering my wealth and going to ruin; a husband in whom I no longer delight, but to whom I am bound by a hundred intricate ties impossible to sever. I think I am not prepared to take the future on trust to so great an extent! Why should the free wish for fetters? Affection and sympathy are good things, indispensable things in fact,—but I find them in my friends. And for this other matter: this need of love, passion, sentiment,-which is peculiarly ephemeral in its impulses, notwithstanding that it has such an insistent vitality in the human heart,—may be satisfied without entailing such tremendous responsibilities.”