“I am sure he has not, and it is really none of our business.”
“I believe that men should be as pure as women,” she said setting her lips.
“Perhaps they should, but they are not; you see there are so many women who make a business of tempting them from the time they begin to take notice that it is quite unreasonable to expect them to attain the feminine standard.”
“I am not talking of bad women.”
“Oh, but they count so, you know. They count because they are the positive force. Virtue is too negative to influence any one but those who are virtuous by nature or circumstance. But as I said before, dear Mrs. Hammond, facts are facts. Why not accept them, and without so much mental wear and tear? Every man has the privilege of leading his own life, so long as he keeps within the law. And if he does not think he is doing wrong, if he does not violate his conscience, then he does himself no moral harm so long as he sins like a gentleman. Of course no one wants the coarse sensualist near one; he is repulsive and should herd with his own kind.”
“And you mean to say you extenuate—you would marry a man who had—who had—made love to many women? I am interested in your views, but I must reiterate that I think if social exigencies compel us to meet such men we should at least discourage their kind by refusing to marry them.”
She looked pale and nervous but her eyes were bright with curiosity.
“I will tell you my theory,” I said, “and I can assure you that I did not jump at it. As I told you, I have seen a good deal of the world, the best of it as well as some of its worst. This is my idea—But first: If God is incarnate in good men and the devil in bad why are bad men invariably more fascinating to women—even to pure women—than good men? I am talking of course of the devil which dwells in masculine and able men, not in the silly and ingenuous sensualist. Now the men who are wholly irresistible are those who combine both God and devil, who stimulate and intensify the soul and the imagination as well as the passions. This confounds orthodoxy, but does not to my mind deepen the mystery. Is not this combination, perhaps, the perfect man? And as man is—we believe—made in the divine image—may not God and the devil be one rounded being? Why does the ‘perfect’ man and woman invariably irritate and antagonize, even have a bad influence,—arousing the devil of perversity—when the perfection is in the least self-conscious? Is it not because we instinctively feel their failure to achieve the standard we have accepted as divine, and resent the imposition? And can such a one-sided being give happiness? Not any more than the lowest brute. Therefore, I maintain that a man to reach full stature must have room in his soul for God and the devil to jog along peacefully side by side.”
She rose, white and aghast. “I never, never heard anything to approximate that for audacity—and—and—terrible profanity. But I am too nervous to argue with you. I see Mrs. Laurence coming. Please tell her—she is so brilliant, so gifted. I know she could refute——”
“Please tell her that I have not had a walk to-day! that I shall have a violent headache if I miss it! Please be an angel and don’t tell her I saw her coming—” and I almost ran to the back veranda and plunged into the woods. I had screwed up my courage to the highest pitch and I knew I couldn’t do it a second time. I felt nervous, almost excited, and I wanted a walk and the solitude of the woods.