"Mrs. Kilroy has been here."
"I hope you thanked her for nothing!"
"I'm afraid I forgot to thank her at all," Beth said, "although she has put me under an obligation to her."
"May I ask what the obligation is?"
"She told me frankly why no decent woman will associate with us. It is not my fault after all, it seems, but yours—you and your Lock Hospital. It is against the Anglo-Saxon spirit to admit panders into society."
"Oh, she told you about that, did she, the meddling busybody!" he answered coolly. "I was afraid they would, some of them, damn them! and I knew you would go into hysterics. She didn't tell you the necessity for it, I suppose, nor the good it is doing; but I will; so just listen to me, then you'll see perhaps that I know more about it than these canting sentimentalists."
Beth, sitting in judgment on him, set her mouth and listened in silence until he stopped. In his own defence he gave her many revolting details couched in the coarsest language.
"But then, in the name of justice," she exclaimed, "what means do you take to protect those poor unfortunate women from disease? What do you do to the men who spread it? What becomes of diseased men?"
"Oh, they marry, I suppose. Anyhow, that is not my business. Doctors can't be expected to preach morals. Sanitation is our business."
"But aren't morals closely connected with sanitation?" Beth said. "And why, if sanitation is your business, do you take no radical measures with regard to this horrible disease? Why do you not have it reported, never mind who gets it, as scarlet fever, smallpox, and other diseases—all less disastrous to the general health of the community—are reported?"