Lucy
[takes Helen apart]
Now, I may be old-fashioned, Helen, but I'm a married woman, and I know men. You never can tell, my dear, you never can tell.
Helen
Do you think I'd live with a man who did not love me? Do you think I'd live on a man I did not love? [Lucy blinks.] Why, what kind of a woman should I be then! The name wife—would that change it? Calling it holy—would that hallow it?... Every woman, married or not, knows the truth about this! In her soul woman has always known. But until to-day has never dared to tell.
Ernest
[approaching Helen]
Oh, come now—those vows—they aren't intended in a literal sense. Ask Theodore. Why, no sane person means half of that gibberish. "With all my worldly goods I thee endow"—millions of men have said it—how many ever did it? How many clergymen ever expect them to!... It's all a polite fiction in beautiful, sonorous English.
Helen
The most sacred relationship in life! Ernest, shall you and I enter it unadvisedly, lightly, and with LIES on our lips?... Simply because others do?