"Not a bit of it ... we're running along converging lines. The stage is the mart for the prettiest and most magnetic of women. A pretty woman may be moral, but the chances are against it. Every man looks upon her as so much legitimate loot. They differ only in their methods of getting away with it. Sometimes they effect a legitimate sale: this is what our social system calls marriage. More often the rate of exchange is usurious on the part of the man. It varies from a bottle of wine and a few pretty clothes to a diamond necklace and equally brilliant promises.... Now here's where our lines converge. The stage is a good place to show goods. Our eternal chase bids us go in and look 'em over—and—if you are in a mood to trade—to say nothing of having the price—you'll find a bevy of ambitious beauties with a keen eye to business."
"You infer, then, that the society lady sins for love only—and that the actress bestows her affection for purely mercenary motives?"
"I don't make any such broad distinction as that—but I believe the actress has always an eye on the main chance and that she wouldn't let a little thing like love interfere with business.... The society woman, on the other hand, usually goes wrong because she's unhappily married and tries to make up for what's missing by stealing a little happiness on the side."
"Then I am to believe that the stories one reads about lovers who present other men's wives with bejewelled gold purses and other little feminine gew-gaws are wholly fictitious; pure emanations from the brain of newspaper reporters—or the French dramatist ... and from the divorce records?"
The doctor threw back his head and roared like a lion....
"Perhaps you'll be good enough to tell me under what head you classified me—being neither a love-lorn society lady nor an ambitious actress with an eye to the main chance...."
The doctor sobered to the point of anger. "I have told you that I am sorry.... I have apologized.... After all, what are we rowing about? You've proved an alibi—you're not like the rest—so let's forget it."
"I can't forget it.... You are judging a whole class by a few individuals who share your perverted ideas ... individuals who would be immoral in a nunnery.... Would any of the women of your set—name any one of them—would she—could she be less moral on the stage? Impossible! I don't believe you when you say none of them would 'go the limit!' Women who drink as much as they do; women whose tongues are furred with vulgar stories; women who proclaim they are 'on to their husbands' and that their husbands are on to them and still continue to live under the same roof, occupy the same beds; women who write other women's husbands love letters and arrange places of assignation ... do you mean you do not know these women 'go the limit'?" ... My indignation and resentment had swept me like a storm and left me weak and bedraggled. The doctor made no response.... I felt that he was watching me. After a while I proceeded more quietly....
"The trouble with you, doctor, is that you form your opinions from the newspapers. The man who writes the head-lines believes it is his bounden duty to accentuate any and everything pertaining to the stage. The most obscure chorus girl is 'an actress.' Every divorcée whose antics have emblazoned the hall of ill-fame expects to become an actress and the newspapers record her aspiration in large type. A police court magistrate in New York once told me that three-fourths of the women arrested on the streets for accosting men gave their occupations on the police blotter as 'actress.' Do you think any yellow sheet ever let an opportunity like that go by?... If all the petty affairs of your clients or your friends and casual acquaintances, both scandalous and innocuous, were printed from week to week, do you think there would be an appreciable difference between the standard of morality of the doctors, the dentists, the butchers and bakers and that of the actor?... I don't think you take into consideration that the actor's life is public property. He is denied the right of privacy in all matters. Nothing is too trivial, too delicately personal, to be shared with the public."
"And who's to blame for that, my lady, but the player himself? Publicity is his stock in trade. He's got to advertise, or drop out.... If ever I want a divorce, I'll dig up an actor as co-respondent: not because there may not be others, but because the actor would appreciate the advertisement." ... The doctor leaned toward me to better enjoy my discomfiture, then laughed tormentingly.