"The gift" of herself "had been made" to her husband. Her real self lay with him and with their coming child.
So she conquered the final test, escaped "applying a general law to a particular case—taking one's values ready-made—the old, old humbug." As "the last comforting falsity fell from her she saw . . . the truth."
This was the truth for her. It is not offered as an argument for or against a dogmatic rule that no woman may ever be justified in leaving her husband.
What this thoroughly modern and sincere novel does establish, is the equal folly, and almost greater moral danger, of the opposite dogma: that self-expression for its own sake, the mere putting a moment's apparent happiness above all other claims or aims, without considering the future, or seeking to find one's real self, is a false and evil ideal.
Miss Delafield gives the "new" morality a fair, and even an eloquent, hearing, chooses a case where all the circumstances seem combined for its support, and then exposes the fallacy of its reasoning.
VIII
WHAT, THEN, IS THIS NEW LOVE? IT IS SEX-CONFLICT.
The most obvious, and the most sincere, form of self-expression rests on pure emotion—a natural and healthy impulse. The right thus to express oneself belongs, as we acknowledge to-day, to women no less than men.
But, largely misled by their over-insistence upon the physical in human nature, too many modern thinkers confuse fierce excitement with deep emotion. Also seeing, and wisely exalting, the glory of youth's dream, they sanction, and even advise, thoughtless haste and action on every impulse.