"Didn't I make out my point? Didn't I prove that they too were votaries of the fickle goddess?"
"I think you did, in a measure."
"And in a good measure too. So give up your point, as you promised, and confess yourself an advocate of fashion."
"I don't see clearly how I can do that, notwithstanding all that has passed to-night; for I do not rationally perceive the use of all these changes in dress."
"I am not certain that I can enlighten you fully on the subject; but think that I may, perhaps in a degree, if you will allow my views their proper weight in your mind."
"I will try to do so; but shall not promise to be convinced."
"No matter. Convinced or not convinced you will still be carried along by the current. As to the primary cause of the change in fashion it strikes me that it is one of the visible effects of that process of change ever going on in the human mind. The fashion of dress that prevails may not be the true exponent of the internal and invisible states, because they must necessarily be modified in various ways by the interests and false tastes of such individuals as promulgate them. Still, this does not affect the primary cause."
"Granting your position to be true, Mary, which I am not fully prepared to admit or deny—why should we blindly follow these fashions?"
"We need not blindly. For my part, I am sure that I do not blindly follow them."
"You do when you adopt a fashion without thinking it becoming."