"What could he say?" demanded Hamilton.
They sat a moment in silence.
Kimberly broke it. "It is a humiliating fact, Hamilton--I often think of it," he said moodily--"that the only way in which we can determine our own moral standing is by measuring the standards of our vicious classes. I mean by our vicious classes the social driftwood who figure in the divorce courts and the scandal of the day and should be placed in a social penitentiary.
"What is really alarming to-day is that our standards of what constitutes vice have fallen so low. We speak of husbands; has there ever been a period in the history of our race when husbands have fallen so low? There was a time when the man that spoke the English tongue would defend his home with his life----"
"In those days they had homes to defend."
"--when it meant death to the man that crossed the threshold of his honor----"
"They had honor, too."
"But consider the baseness the American husband has reached. When he suspects his wife's infidelity, instead of hiding his possible disgrace, he employs detectives to make public the humiliating proofs of it. He advertises himself in the bill he files in the courts. He calls on all men to witness his abasement. He proclaims his shame from the housetops and wears his stripes as a robe of honor. And instead of killing the interloper he brands the woman that bears his name, perhaps the mother of his children, as a public creature--isn't it curiously infamous? And this is what our humane, enlightened, and progressive social views have brought us to--we have fallen too low to shoot!
"However," concluded Kimberly, shaking himself free from the subject, "my own situation presents quite other difficulties. And, by the way, Francis is still ailing. He asked the superior yesterday for a substitute and went home ill. You have seen Uncle John?"
"A moment, before dinner."