She reflected for a few seconds, then said suddenly:
"Do you believe that any one should be tied down to conventional morality, Mr. Erskine?"
"Conventional morality?" I asked. "I am not sure that I understand."
"Don't you think," she said, "that one has a right to pick the flowers that lie in one's pathway? Rather, don't you think it is one's duty to do so?"
"The question is rather too abstract for me," was my reply; "one has to get down to concrete instances."
Again she reflected for a few seconds.
"I am glad you have come up early," she said. "Glad to have this opportunity of talking with you alone. You have come from a world of ideas. You have met with people who are determined to live their lives at all costs."
"I have met with people, certainly, who have claimed to do this," was my reply; "but, on the whole, the so-called unconventional people, as far as my experience goes, are the most discontented. After all, life doesn't admit of many experiments, and those who make them, as a rule, have to pay very dearly for them."
"Yes, but they have been happy while they have been making them," was her reply. "You confess to that, don't you?"
"I am not sure. For example, I know a man who was determined to do as you say. He said he would live his life untrammelled by conventional ideas, that he would experiment, that he would pick the flowers that grew at his feet, no matter to whom they belonged."