be false to my sex, a traitor to my convictions; to sell my kind
for a mess of pottage, a name and a home, or even for thirty pieces
of silver, to be some rich man's wife, as other women have sold it.
But, Alan, I can't. My conscience won't let me. I know what
marriage is, from what vile slavery it has sprung; on what unseen
horrors for my sister women it is reared and buttressed; by what
unholy sacrifices it is sustained, and made possible. I know it
has a history, I know its past, I know its present, and I can't
embrace it; I can't be untrue to my most sacred beliefs. I can't
pander to the malignant thing, just because a man who loves me
would be pleased by my giving way and would kiss me, and fondle me
for it. And I love you to fondle me. But I must keep my proper
place, the freedom which I have gained for myself by such arduous
efforts. I have said to you already, 'So far as my will goes, I am
yours; take me, and do as you choose with me.' That much I can
yield, as every good woman should yield it, to the man she loves,
to the man who loves her. But more than that, no. It would be
treason to my sex; not my life, not my future, not my individuality,
not my freedom."

"I wouldn't ask you for those," Alan answered, carried away by the
torrent flood of her passionate speech. "I would wish you to guard
them. But, Herminia, just as a matter of form,--to prevent the
world from saying the cruel things the world is sure to say,--and
as an act of justice to you, and your children! A mere ceremony of
marriage; what more does it mean now-a-days than that we two agree
to live together on the ordinary terms of civilized society?"

Still Herminia shook her head. "No, no," she cried vehemently. "I
deny and decline those terms; they are part and parcel of a system