"—the mere expediency of the conventions right and wrong, and yet man's hopeless struggle to be rid of the phantom Duty. If you pass the churches by, she confronts you in the schools, in the laboratory, follows you in the streets, dogs you day and night, the 'implacable huntress.' We may free ourselves from all superstitions but Duty. She, in one guise or another, is ever at the heels of men."
"You wouldn't be a Gano if you didn't feel so," she said, wondering vaguely if she had dreamed Ethan's coming and John's going.
Which was it, walking the worn and faded track on Valeria's old blue Brussels?
"Exactly. So Uncle John said."
Ah, then it was Ethan!
"What was it John said?"
She drew herself up, and shook off the veil of faintness.
"Several unforgettable things about man's first duty to the race—about not inflicting upon others the burdens Val and I must bear."
"Burdens!" (Ah, she remembered now what they had been talking about.) "What burden, I'd like to know, does Val bear that you can't lift?"
"Her father's."