Horace looked down at her, and his face softened. “Oh Rose,” he said, “you are all alike, you women. When it comes to a question of right or wrong, you will all lay your best-beloved on the altar of sacrifice. Your logic is all wrong, dear. You want to do right so much that the dust of virtue gets into your eyes of love and blinds them. I should come first with you, before your aunt Sylvia, and your own truth and happiness should come first; but you wanted to lay them all at her feet—or, rather, at the feet of your conscience.”
“I only wanted to do what was right,” Rose sobbed again.
“I know you did, dear.” Horace put his arm around Rose. He drew her to a chair, sat down, and took her on his knee. He looked at her almost comically, in return for her glance of piteous appeal.
“Don't laugh at me,” she whispered.
Horace kissed her. “I am not laughing at you, but at the eternal feminine, dear,” he said. “There is something very funny about the eternal feminine. It is so earnest on the wrong tack, and hurts itself and others so cruelly, and gets no thanks for it.”
“I don't know what you mean. I don't like your talking so to me, Horace. I only meant to do what was right.”
“I won't talk so any more, darling.”
“I don't think I have much of the eternal feminine about me, Horace.”
“Of course not, sweetheart.”
“I love you, anyway,” Rose whispered, and put up her face to be kissed again, “and I didn't want to hurt you. I only wanted to do my duty.”