Elinor hesitated.
“I don't like him. He is a man of very impure life.”
“That's because he has never known any good women.” Lily rose valiantly to his defense, but the words hurt her. “Suppose a good woman came into his life? Couldn't she change him?”
“I don't know,” Elinor said helplessly. “But there is something else. It will cut you off from your family.”
“You did that. You couldn't stand it, either. You know what it's like.”
“There must be some other way. That is no reason for marriage.”
“But—suppose I care for him?” Lily said, shyly.
“You wouldn't live with him a year. There are different ways of caring, Lily. There is such a thing as being carried away by a man's violent devotion, but it isn't the violent love that lasts.”
Lily considered that carefully, and she felt that there was some truth in it. When Louis Akers came to take her home that night he found her unresponsive and thoughtful.
“Mrs. Doyle's been talking to you,” he said at last. “She hates me, you know.”