“Yes. And not only to say it, but to prove it.”
Still she was calm, deliberate.
“Let me see,” she asked; “you have a wife?”
“Yes, but she’s nothing to me.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s no love between us. Marriage without love is legal debasement. Love without marriage may reach the supreme height of human happiness.”
Suddenly she appeared to grow interested. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes shone. He thought she was seeing something of his vision.
“Do you think,” she asked, “that a married man has a moral right to love a woman who is not his wife?”
“Undoubtedly, when the woman who is his wife has ceased to care for him. The marriage contract is binding in conscience, and should be in law, only so long as love lasts between the parties to it. You are a socialist. You know what our doctrine is. In the coming socialist commonwealth there will be no permanent marriage bond. It will be a bond that can be dissolved at will. It will accommodate itself to the happiness of those affected by it. That’s the doctrine of Marx and Bebel and Belfort Bax. Then a man will be legally as well as morally free to put off a dead love and take on a living one. It’s a living love that, with your help, I shall take on to-night.”