“You––you consented because he wished it?”
“Of course. Is not that our law?”
“Do you so construe the Law of Love and Service? Does it permit us to seek protection under false pretences; to say yes when we mean no; to kneel before a God we do not believe in; to accept immunity under a law we do not believe in?”
“If all this concerned only one’s self, then, no! Or, if the man believed as we do, no! But even then––” she shook her head slowly, “unless all agree, it is unfair.”
“Unfair?”
“Yes, it is unfair if you have a baby. Isn’t it, darling? Isn’t it unfair and tyrannical?”
“You mean that a child should not arbitrarily be placed by its parents at what it might later consider a disadvantage?”
“Of course I mean just that. Do you know, Palla, what Jack once said of us? He said––rather brutally, I thought––that you and I were immaturely un-moral and pitiably unbaked; and that the best thing for both of us was to marry and have a few children before we tried to do any more independent thinking.”
Palla’s reply was: “He was such a dear!” But what she said did not seem absurd to either of them.