"I feel sure you wrong him there; it's true I don't know your husband as well as I know you, my dear, but I assure you that amongst men he has the reputation of a man of honour."
"Man of honour meaning, I presume, one who won't cheat another man but will cheat a woman."
"Oh, come! that's a bit sweeping."
"The men who know Bel know how he's been treating me—all New York knows! If he treated them as treacherously, would they call him a man of honour?" Willis gave a vague gesture of deprecation, and Lucinda laughed a little, but not in mirth. "Women are at least more honest among themselves; if a woman knows another who isn't playing fair with her husband, she either keeps quiet about it or calls her a cat, and lets it go at that—she doesn't call her a woman of honour."
"You don't think it would be worth while," Willis suggested as one in duty bound, "to forgive Bellamy, give him another chance?"
"I don't know I've got anything to forgive him, Mr. Willis. Bel did the best he could. And that's the whole trouble. Why should I forgive him for being true to himself? It's myself I can't forgive, because I was silly enough to let him go on as long as I did, making me a laughing-stock.... Besides, I'm not so sure it's good for us to be forgiven our sins; we're all such vain creatures, we're too apt to take forgiveness as a license to misbehave still more.... Don't you see?"
"I see you are beginning to formulate a philosophy of life."
"Isn't it about time?"
"You will need it, my dear, if you mean to fight this out alone. Philosophy is good medicine only for lonely hearts. The others it merely hardens."
Lucinda eyed Willis sharply. "Bel has been to see you."