"I will try."
"Try very hard. For after all it is a man's world, and she doesn't understand it. Try to be fair to her, Kelly. For—whether or not the laws that govern the world are man-made and unjust—they are, nevertheless, the only laws. Few men can successfully fight them; no woman can—yet…. I am not angering you, am I?"
"No. Go on."
"I have so little to say—I who feel so deeply—deeply…. And the laws are always there, Kelly, always there—fair or unfair, just or unjust—they are always there to govern the world that framed them. And a woman disobeys them at her peril."
She moved slightly in her chair and sat supporting her head on one pretty ringless hand.
"Yet," she said, "although a woman disobeys any law at her peril—laws which a man may often ignore with impunity—there is one law to which no woman should dare subscribe. And it is sometimes known as 'The Common Law of Marriage.'"
She sat silent for a while, her gaze never leaving his shadowy face.
"That is the only law—if it is truly a law—that a woman must ignore. All others it is best for her to observe. And if the laws of marriage are merely man-made or divine, I do not know. There is a din in the world to-day which drowns the voices preaching old beliefs…. And a girl is deafened by the clamour…. And I don't know.
"But, it seems to me, that back of the laws men have made—if there be nothing divine in their inspiration—there is another foundation solid enough to carry them. Because it seems to me that the world's laws—even when unjust—are built on natural laws. And how can a girl say that these natural laws are unjust because they have fashioned her to bear children and feed them from her own body?
"And another thing, Kelly; if a man breaks a man-made law—founded, we believe, on a divine commandment—he suffers only in a spiritual and moral sense…. And with us it may be more than that. For women, at least, hell is on earth."