It was so evident that he meant what he said, he appeared so righteously indignant, that Luella paused, dumbfounded, twisting the apron in her hands.
"Wh-why ain't you married, then?" she demanded.
The young man surveyed her calmly. "Because I—we disapprove of marriage," he said.
Luella turned a brick-red; her mouth opened vaguely. Though she spoke not a word, he answered her amazed face.
"The conditions of marriage at the present day," he stated loftily, "are not such as to lead me—to lead us to suppose that as an institution it has accomplished its purpose. Where it is not merely legalized—"
"Oh, Frank!" the girl moaned softly, putting her little hand over his opened lips. He kissed it gently, but removed it.
"To say nothing of the absolute misery you can see all about you as a result of a chain that ought long ago to have been broken, or better still, never—"
"And before that child, too!" Luella burst out. "Caroline, you get right up and come home. I never heard anything like it in my life. Come this minute, now!"
Caroline rose unwillingly; she thought Luella unnecessarily severe.
"As to that," young Mr. Wortley announced composedly, "we differ again. The sooner these matters are discussed frankly before children, the sooner we shall have fewer unhappy men and women. There is nothing whatever in my intentions or Miss—or Dorothy's, to shock or affront the youngest child. I have no children myself, but—"