"Who makes the law?" I asked, determined to get at the bottom of the thing if I could.
"The people through the Legislature," was the prompt answer.
"Well," I said, very timidly, not knowing but I was quite in the wrong, "it seems that the people of Russia not being able to make laws nevertheless recognize the separation of a man and his wife as proper, and permit them to take other husbands and wives without loss of standing."
"A law's a law," said Sarah, sternly; "and a law should be sacred. The very idea of anybody pretending to be above the law like this man Gorky! I would like to know what would become of the holy institution of matrimony if it could be trifled with in such a fashion?"
"You want Russia to be free from the rule of the Tsar, don't you?" I asked.
"Certainly, he is a tyrant and an irresponsible weakling, unfit to govern a great people. Of course, we want Russia to be free. The people of Russia are entitled to be free, to govern themselves."
"Do you think they ought to be allowed to make their own laws?" I asked.
"Of course."
"Then, why do you say that Gorky is not properly divorced from his first wife and married to his second? The people of Russia approve."
"Margaret Grant!" cried Sarah, outraged and voicing the horror of the other members, "I sometimes wonder if you have any respect at all for the law. How can you speak as you do? If men and women could dispense with the law in that way what would become of society?"