She meant that between herself and Amory there was not at bottom a pin to choose....
And since the Cause of Progress did demand that Amory should marry Cosimo, even had it all been true the end would still have justified those or almost any other means. There precisely lay the rub. What are you to say to a person so blind to true meanings as to accuse you of doing what, quite inessentially, you do merely happen to be doing? You cannot admit that they are right—they are so hideously wrong: you cannot tell them they are wrong—they cling so stupidly to a certain appearance of being right. What are you to do?
One thing at least Amory did: she hated Dorothy in that moment. And because she herself wished to be merciful to Dorothy she did not take up that fatal “Unless——” Instead she said, very gently indeed:
“Aren’t you rather taking the lowest view of things? Must this physical side always be dragged in?”
Nor was Dorothy very much disposed now to mince matters. The word had popped out, and she was not going to run away from it. If Amory wanted to talk about physical sides, she might; Dorothy’s own physique overshadowed Amory’s as a ruffled swan overshadows a duckling. She turned, her bosom high, her hands stroking down her waist.
“But it’s you who drag it in!” she cried. “If only you weren’t always talking about it! But you only pretend you’re only talking about something else; it seems to me you never let it alone! What’s your Eugenics, if it isn’t that, and your Balance of the Sexes, and your State Nurseries? You aren’t a snuffy old man writing learned treatises about it all; you’re a pretty girl, and I dare say you’re quite right, but I don’t see the use of pretending——”
“Do you mean that I’m pretending to be something I’m not?” Amory asked sharply. “Say what you mean. Perhaps you mean virtuous?”
Dorothy stamped. “Oh ... need we?”
“Because if you really care to know——” said Amory proudly.
“Oh ... I’m going. Good-bye.”