Mrs. V. B. I have.
Mr. S. I tell you at once that I am loath to believe this thing.
Mrs. V. B. (with indignant surprise). Why are you loath to believe this thing?
Mr. S. Why? (Rises.) Because its audacity, its want of principle, and, above all, its unspeakable indelicacy, shock me beyond the power of expression.
Mrs. V. B. Mr. Smailey, is it possible that you are speaking deliberately? Think of any blameless woman whom you love and honor, and who is loved and honored of all. Think of the shivering outcast whose presence is contamination, whose touch is horror unspeakable, whose very existence is an unholy stain on God’s earth. Woman—loved, honored, courted by all. Woman—shunned, loathed, and unutterably despised, but still—Woman. I do not plead for those whose advantages of example and education render their fall ten thousand times more culpable. Let others speak for such as they. (With a broken voice.)—It may be that something is to be said, even for them. I plead for those who have had the world against them from the first—who with blunted weapons and untutored hands have fought society single-handed, and fallen in the unequal fight. God help them!
Mr. S. Mrs. Van Brugh, I have no desire to press hardly on any fellow-creature, but society, the grand arbiter in these matters, has decided that a woman who has once forfeited her moral position shall never regain it.
Mrs. V. B. Even though her repentance be sincere and beyond doubt?
Mr. S. Even so.
Mrs. V. B. Even though she fell unprotected, unadvised, perishing with want and chilled with despair?
Mr. S. Even so. For such a woman there is no excuse—for such a woman there is no pardon.