"You asked me a question at dinner-time," she said, "winch I did not
answer at the time. You asked me why I disliked James Miller so much."

"Don't tell me unless you like," he begged. "Don't talk about that
sort of person at all just now, unless you want to."

"I must tell you why I dislike him so much," she insisted. "It is
because he once tried to kiss me."

"Was that so terrible a sin?" he asked, a little thickly.

She smiled up at him with the candour of a child.

"To me it was," she acknowledged, "because it was just the casual caress
of a man seeking for a momentary emotion. Sometimes you have
wondered--or you have looked as though you were wondering--what my ideas
about men and women and the future and the marriage laws, and all that
sort of thing really are. Perhaps I haven't altogether made up my mind
myself, but I do know this, because it is part of myself and my life.
The one desire I have is for children--sons for the State, or daughters
who may bear sons. There isn't anything else which it is worth while
for a woman thinking about for a moment. And yet, do you know, I never
actually think of marrying. I never think about whether love is right
or wrong. I simply think that no man shall ever kiss me, or hold me in
his arms, unless it is the man who is sent to me for my desire, and when
he comes, just whoever he may be, or whenever it may be, and whether St.
George's opens its doors to us or whether we go through some tangle of
words at a registry office, or whether neither of these things happens,
I really do not mind. When he comes, he will give me what I want--that
is just all that counts. And until he comes, I shall stay just as I