“If he would let you do it he would not be the-right man.”
“I’m not so sure of that. The best men—the greatest men—the bravest—the cleverest—the most devout men have never been over-particular when it came to a question of women. I believe if I were really to fall in love with a man I would do as so many of the best women in the world have done—I would go to him, and let convention and religion go hang.”
“Don’t tell me. You would do nothing of the sort. But do you really feel so strongly about being married? I think, you know, that since you worked out your plan of teaching Mr. Kelton a lesson you seem to be a different girl, but still——”
“My dear Rosa, don’t let any one try to tell you that there’s any life for a woman in this world apart from a man. There’s not. And don’t let any one try to convince you that there’s any life for a man without a woman by his side. There’s not.”
“To play his accompaniments?”
“Yes, in the right key, mind. That’s just what a woman is placed in the world to do—to play a man’s accompaniments in the right key. If Mr. Kelton had a wife by his side he would not now have a sense of being made a fool of.”
“He’s probably as conceited as ever by this time. Now how was it that we went on to talk of men and women when really our topic was Mr. Kelton?”
“I know. You were about to say that no one should think hardly of me for making a fool of any man, considering how great a fool I was made by a man. That was what was in your mind; but you were wrong, Rosie dear, for I don’t think at all bitterly of men. On the contrary, I tell you that you must be prepared for the worst—what your father and other professional moralists would call the worst—from me. I’m only an amateur moralist. In fact, I’m not quite sure that I should even call myself an amateur. I don’t really know that I have any morals whatever.”
“You have no need for any. What do girls like you or me know of morals?”
“Nothing, except those we got hold of when we read Fontaine’s Fables at school.”