"No. Jim, you must face the truth. I am going to marry this man, and the most horrible thing I can say about myself is that, deeply as I love you, I know I shall be content with the splendid career that will be mine. I shall never regret my marriage."
The lover looked at her in a dazed way as if unable to grasp the meaning of her words.
"Nan," he cried at last, "you can't mean that!"
"I do."
"But you can't do this vile thing. Since the world began I know that vain, weak, ignorant women have sold themselves to men they could not love, for money, rank and luxury. But you are not of that breed, Nan. You are not weak, you are not ignorant. You are strong in body and soul, with high aims and the inheritance of rich blood in your veins.
"You are the typical American girl, the daughter of the line of men and women who have made this Republic the glory of the world—women whose hearts have been pure, whose lives have been clean, who have kept burning in the hearts of men the great faiths of the soul. Respect for this woman has been one of the foundations of our moral life. In the worship I have paid you, there has been more than the charm of sex, there has been always this instinctive recognition of the divine. Are you going to kill my faith in God? The woman who sells herself to buy bread, stands higher in the moral world than you——" He hesitated.
"Go on, Jim, say the worst. And still I'm going to do it."
"Knowing full well that no ceremony of Church or State, no words of priest or judge, no pealing of organ, or pomp or pageantry can make this thing a marriage? There is but one vile word in the English tongue that fits the woman——"
Nan straightened her figure with a smile of defiance:
"Say it!"