He goes on to make, without comment, a statement of the economic facts of the case.
"As a rule," he says, "the income which a young man earns, while sufficient to secure a fair degree of comfort for himself, does not suffice for founding a family."
He cannot found a family at the right time. He goes unmarried through the romantic period of his development, when the senses are at their keenest and when the other sex in its most vividly idealized perfection, is most poignantly desired.
Then, later on, he may begin to get a larger income. Then marriage may become more feasible. But then romance is waning. Then, as Mr. Johnson says, "his standard of personal comfort rises." Romance has been succeeded by calculation. "Accordingly he postpones marriage to a date in the indefinite future or abandons expectation of it altogether."
Celibacy through the age of romance! It's emotionally wrong. Sexlessness for a score of years after sex has awakened! It's biologically wrong. It's a defiance of nature. And nature responds, as she does to every defiance, with a scourge of physical and social ills.
"But what of all that?" thought Mary. "Those things are just observations. What I am going to act on is that I want John."
At which point she stopped being a typical modern young woman.
SHE BECAME A WOMAN OF THE FUTURE.
"Look here," she said to John, "I'm working. You're working. We're single. Very well. We'll change it. I'm working. You're working. We're married. Have we lost anything? And we've gained each other."
Two years later she stopped working.