He began adroitly enough by complimenting her on the success with which she had made Janet alive to the galvanic interests of contemporary life. It was a miracle of education, he assured her, and he begged her not to spoil the achievement by converting Janet to her favorite theory of free love. He hoped she would rather warn her friend of the folly of contracting a free union under existing social sanctions.
"Like the majority of men, you believe love and sex emotion to be one and the same thing," she retorted, cuttingly. "That's why you have no understanding of what freedom in love means."
"Now, Cornelia, I won't be drawn into a controversy on the merits of free love."
"Then don't sneer at it."
"I don't. In fact, like every healthy young human being, I am by nature something of a varietist myself. But, as a civilized member of society, I'm bound to take the institutions of my country and generation as I find them. I believe Janet will be better off, if she does so too. Let her set out to alter or revolutionize our institutions, but not to defy them."
"My poor Cato! Don't you know that numbers of the young women of today are quietly doing what numbers of the young men have always done?"
"Living in illicit relations, you mean?"
"That is what a ridiculous man-made custom calls it."
"But, Cornelia, although many of the Lorillard girls have admittedly flung a glove in the face of social conventions—"
"I'm not talking of Lorillard girls, Robert. I'm talking of teachers, lawyers, stenographers—the 'respectable' girls who remain in their schools and offices without any loss of self-respect or public esteem, and who merely do what the 'respectable' men do, that is, pay a mock tribute to outward appearances, and go scot free."