“Valerie, your logic and your ethics are terribly twisted—­”

“Perhaps.  All I know is that I love you.  I’d rather talk of that—­”

“Than talk of marrying me!”

“Yes, dear.”

“But you’d make me so happy, so proud—­”

“You darling! to say so.  Think so always, Louis, because I promise to make you happy, anyway—­”

He had encircled her waist with one arm, and they were slowly pacing the floor before the hearth, she with her charming young head bent, eyes downcast, measuring her steps to his.

She said, thoughtfully:  “I have my own ideas concerning life.  One of them is to go through it without giving pain to others.  To me, the only real wickedness is the wilful infliction of unhappiness.  That covers all guilt....  Other matters seem so trivial in comparison—­I mean the forms and observances—­the formalism of sect and creed....  To me they mean nothing—­these petty laws designed to govern those who are willing to endure them.  So I ignore them,” she concluded, smilingly; and touched her lips to his hand.

“Do you include the marriage law?” he asked, curiously.

“In our case, yes....  I don’t think it would do for everybody to ignore it.”

“You think we may, safely?”

“Don’t you, Louis?” she asked, flushing.  “It leaves you free in your own world.”

“How would it leave you?”

She looked up, smiling adorably at his thought of her: 

“Free as I am now, dearest of men—­free to be with you when you wish for me, free to relieve you of myself when you need that relief, free to come and go and earn my living as independently as you gain yours.  It would leave me absolutely tranquil in body and mind....”  She laid her flushed face against his.  “Only my heart would remain fettered.  And that is now inevitable.”

He kissed her and drew her closer: 

“You are so very, very wrong, dear.  The girl who gives herself without benefit of clergy walks the earth with her lover in heavier chains than ever were forged at any earthly altar.”

She bent her head thoughtfully; they paced the floor for a while in silence.

Presently she looked up:  “You once said that love comes unasked and goes unbidden.  Do vows at an altar help matters?  Is divorce more decent because lawful?  Is love more decent when it has been officially and clerically catalogued?”

“It is safer.”

“For whom?”

“For the community.”

“Perhaps.”  She considered as she timed her slow pace to his: 

“But, Louis, I can’t marry you and I love you!  What am I to do?  Live out life without you?  Let you live out life without me?  When my loving you would not harm you or me?  When I love you dearly—­more dearly, more deeply every minute?  When life itself is—­is beginning to be nothing in this world except you?  What are we to do?”

And, as he made no answer: