“Sylvia,” said her mother, in a strong, clear voice, acutely contrasted to Sylvia’s muffled tones, “Sylvia, it’s a lie that men are nothing but sensual!  There’s nothing in marriage that a good girl honestly in love with a good man need fear.”

“But—­but—­” began Sylvia, startled out of her shyness.

Her mother cut her short.  “Anything that’s felt by decent men in love is felt just as truly, though maybe not always so strongly, by women in love.  And if a woman doesn’t feel that answer in her heart to what he feels—­why, he’s no mate for her.  Anything’s better for her than going on.  And, Sylvia, you mustn’t get the wrong idea.  Sensual feeling isn’t bad in itself.  It’s in the world because we have bodies as well as minds—­it’s like the root of a plant.  But it oughtn’t to be a very big part of the plant.  And it must be the root of the woman’s feeling as well as the man’s, or everything’s all wrong.”

“But how can you tell!” burst out Sylvia.

“You can tell by the way you feel, if you don’t lie to yourself, or let things like money or social position count.  If an honest girl shrinks from a man instinctively, there’s something not right—­sensuality is too big a part of what the man feels for her—­and look here, Sylvia, that’s not always the man’s fault.  Women don’t realize as they ought how base it is to try to attract men by their bodies,” she made her position clear with relentless precision, “when they wear very low-necked dresses, for instance—­” At this chance thrust, a wave of scarlet burst up suddenly over Sylvia’s face, but she could not withdraw her eyes from her mother’s searching, honest gaze, which, even more than her words, spoke to the girl’s soul.  The strong, grave voice went on unhesitatingly.  For once in her life Mrs. Marshall was speaking out.  She was like one who welcomes the opportunity to make a confession of faith.  “There’s no healthy life possible without some sensual feeling between the husband and wife, but there’s nothing in the world more awful than married life when it’s the only common ground.”

Sylvia gazed with wide eyes at the older woman’s face, ardent, compelling, inspired, feeling too deeply, to realize it wholly, the vital and momentous character of the moment.  She seemed to see nothing, to be aware of nothing but her mother’s heroic eyes of truth; but the whole scene was printed on her mind for all her life—­the hard, brown road they stood on, the grayed old rail-fence back of Mrs. Marshall, a field of brown stubble, a distant grove of beech-trees, and beyond and around them the immense sweeping circle of the horizon.  The very breath of the pure, scentless winter air was to come back to her nostrils in after years.

“Sylvia,” her mother went on, “it is one of the responsibilities of men and women to help each other to meet on a high plane and not on a low one.  And on the whole—­health’s the rule of the world—­on the whole, that’s the way the larger number of husbands and wives, imperfect as they are, do live together.  Family life wouldn’t be possible a day if they didn’t.”