“Oh,” she laughed, “you are such a funny old philosopher, Dudley. You grow worse and worse.”
“I know this,” he went on, “that no sooner does a woman begin to feel herself a leader of society, as you are at this moment, than she finds in her daily path innumerable temptations, of which she had never before dreamed. Her exalted position is maintained, not by the universal suffrage of her friends, for at least one-half of them would tear her down from her pedestal, if they were able, but by the indefatigable exercise of ingenuity in the way of evading, stooping, conciliating, deceiving; as well as by a continued series of efforts to be cheerful when depressed, witty when absolutely dull, and animated, brilliant, and amusing when disappointed, weary, or distressed.”
“Oh,” she cried impatiently, “I thought we had enough of moralising the last time we met! And now you want to re-open the old question.”
“No, Claudia,” he answered, placing his hand tenderly upon her shoulder, which was covered only by the strap of pale-blue embroidered satin which held her handsome corsage. “I only want to show you plainly how in a woman simplicity of heart cannot be allied to ambition. The woman who aspires to be the idol of her fellows, as you do, must be satisfied to lose this lily from her wreath. And when a woman’s simplicity of heart is gone, then she is no longer faithful as a wife or safe as a friend. Her fame is, after all, nothing more than dazzling degradation.”
Chapter Ten.
Makes Plain a Woman’s Duty.
“And all that philosophy is directed against me?” she asked, looking up at him seriously.
“It is only just that you should see yourself, Claudia, as others see you,” he said in a more sympathetic tone of voice. “It pains me to have to speak like this; to criticise your actions as though I were a man old enough to be your grandfather. But I merely want to point out what is the unvarnished truth.”