“Why shouldn’t I?  What do you know about it?  Are you going to turn against me, too?”

“I am—­pretty nearly—­”

“Oh, good God!” Laura tossed up her hands and went on with her walking.

“Quiet!  Please try to be clear and explain.”

“Explain—­to you?  How can I? You don’t understand—­you know nothing about it—­all you know about is schools!  You’re simply a nun when it comes to this.  I see it now—­I didn’t before—­I thought you a modern woman—­with your mind open to new ideas.  But it isn’t, it seems, when it comes to a pinch—­it’s shut as tight as Edith’s is—­”

“Yes, tight!”

“Thank you very much!  Then for the love of Heaven will you kindly leave me alone!  I’ll have a talk with father!”

“You will not have a talk with father—­”

“I most certainly will—­and he’ll understand!  He’s a man, at least—­and he led a man’s life before he was married!”

“Laura!”

“You can’t see it in him—­but I can!”

“You’ll say not a word to him, not one word!  He has had enough this year as it is!”

“Has he?  Then I’m sorry!  If you were any help to me—­instead of acting like a nun—­”

“Will you please stop talking like a fool?”

“I’m not!  I’m speaking the truth and you know it!  You know no more about love like mine than a nun of the middle ages!  You needn’t tell me about Allan Baird.  You think you’re in love with him, don’t you?  Well then, I’ll tell you that you’re not—­your love is the kind that can wait for years—­because it’s cold, it’s cold, it’s cold—­it’s all in your mind and your reason!  And so I say you’re no help to me now!  Here—­look at yourself in the glass over there!  You’re just plain angry—­frightened!”

“Yes—­I am—­I’m frightened.”  While she strove to think clearly, to form some plan, she let her young sister talk rapidly on: 

“I know you are!  And you can’t be fair!  You’re like nearly all American women—­married or single, young or old—­you’re all of you scared to death about sex—­just as your Puritan mothers were!  And you leave it alone—­you keep it down—­you never give it a chance—­you’re afraid!  But I’m not afraid—­and I’m living my life!  And let me tell you I’m not alone!  There are hundreds and thousands doing the same—­right here in New York City to-night!  It’s been so abroad for years and years—­in Rome and Berlin, in Paris and London—­and now, thank God, it has come over here!  If our husbands can do it, why can’t we?  And we are—­we’re starting—­it’s come with the war!  You think war is hell and nothing else, don’t you—­but you’re wrong!  It’s not only killing men—­it’s killing a lot of hypocrisies too—­it’s giving a jolt to marriage!  You’ll see what the women will do soon enough—­when there aren’t enough men any longer—­”

“Suppose you stop this tirade and tell me exactly what you’ve done,” Deborah interrupted.  A simple course of action had just flashed into her mind.