“Pray, who ever distinguished in such a case between reason and inclination?”
“You are most unusually sceptical to-day,” said Rhoda, with an impatient laugh.
“No, my dear. We happen to be going to the root of things, that’s all. Perhaps it’s as well to do so now and then. Oh, I admire you immensely, Rhoda. You are the ideal adversary of those care-nothing and believe-nothing women who keep the world back. But don’t prepare for yourself a woeful disillusion.”
“Take the case of Winifred Haven,” urged Miss Nunn. “She is a good-looking and charming girl, and some one or other will want to marry her some day, no doubt.”
“Forgive my interrupting you. There is great doubt. She has no money but what she can earn, and such girls, unless they are exceptionally beautiful, are very likely indeed to remain unsought.”
“Granted. But let us suppose she has an offer. Should you fear for her prudence?”
“Winifred has much good sense,” admitted the other. “I think she is in as little danger as any girl we know. But it wouldn’t startle me if she made the most lamentable mistake. Certainly I don’t fear it. The girls of our class are not like the uneducated, who, for one reason or another, will marry almost any man rather than remain single. They have at all events personal delicacy. But what I insist upon is, that Winifred would rather marry than not. And we must carefully bear that fact in mind. A strained ideal is as bad, practically, as no ideal at all. Only the most exceptional girl will believe it her duty to remain single as an example and support to what we call the odd women; yet that is the most human way of urging what you desire. By taking up the proud position that a woman must be altogether independent of sexual things, you damage your cause. Let us be glad if we put a few of them in the way of living single with no more discontent than an unmarried man experiences.”
“Surely that’s an unfortunate comparison,” said Rhoda coldly. “What man lives in celibacy? Consider that unmentionable fact, and then say whether I am wrong in refusing to forgive Miss Royston. Women’s battle is not only against themselves. The necessity of the case demands what you call a strained ideal. I am seriously convinced that before the female sex can be raised from its low level there will have to be a widespread revolt against sexual instinct. Christianity couldn’t spread over the world without help of the ascetic ideal, and this great movement for woman’s emancipation must also have its ascetics.”
“I can’t declare that you are wrong in that. Who knows? But it isn’t good policy to preach it to our young disciples.”
“I shall respect your wish; but—”