“'I don't believe it,' I declared. 'These women lied to you. They kept something back. The thing is wrong, abominable, and nothing can make it right or decent. I would rather die of loneliness.'
“I shall never forget Kendall's superior smile as he answered me:
“'Oh, the inconsistency of a woman! She will not marry, she will not have an affaire, yet she longs for the intimate companionship of a man. She wants to go swimming, but insists upon keeping away from the water.'
“I bit my lip in vexation of spirit.
“'Dear friend, don't be annoyed with me,' my poet continued with a quick change to gentleness. 'I didn't make the world or put these troublesome desires and inconsistencies into the hearts of women. Listen! I'll give you my best wisdom now: If a woman cannot marry and will not have a lover, then she must stop all stimulation of her emotions, she must put men out of her thoughts, out of her life and concentrate on something worth while that will not harm her. Let her take up the purely intellectual life, some cultural effort—history, art, municipal reform, anything, and absorb herself in it. Or let her follow the old path that has led thousands of women to peace of mind—let her seek the comforts of religion.' Then smiling, he added: 'You might become a missionary, Pen, in China or Armenia. I'll bet you'd be flirting with some mandarin or pasha before you got through.'
“Again I bit my lip, for I knew very well that the religious life would never satisfy me. If I entered a convent I should probably run away from it in despair. What a horrible situation to want to do right and long to do wrong at the same time!
“Kendall Brown must have read my thoughts.
“'There is one thing you self-pitying ladies must learn,' he went on, 'that is to play the game of life according to the rules. You can't have your cake and eat it. You can't amuse yourselves with fire without getting burned.'
“I was silent.
“'You must stop flirting with temptation—that's what you all do, you pretty women, fascinating women. You can't deny it.'