“Don’t you believe in abstract morality?” Gertrude asked, taking off her glasses and gazing with weak and earnest eyes at Sylvia.
“I don’t believe in anything abstract,” Sylvia replied.
“How strange!” the other murmured. “Goodness me! if I didn’t believe in abstract morality I don’t know where I should be—or what I should do.”
Sylvia regarded the potential sinner with amused curiosity.
“Do tell me what you might do,” she begged. “Would you live with a man without marrying him?”
“Please don’t be coarse,” said Gertrude. “I don’t like it.”
“I could put it much more coarsely,” Sylvia said, with a laugh. “Would you—”
“Sylvia!” Gertrude whistled through her teeth in an agony of apprehensive modesty. “I entreat you not to continue.”
“There you are,” said Sylvia. “That shows what rubbish all your scruples are. You’re shocked at what you thought I was going to say. Therefore you ought to be shocked at yourself. As a matter of fact, I was going to ask if you would marry a man without loving him.”
“If I were to marry,” Gertrude said, primly, “I should certainly want to love my husband.”