“Why shouldn’t she and I meet here alone if we want to?  And why these absurd restrictions surrounding the life of girls?  I’ve accepted them, as I accept my morning coffee, because they’re there.  But what do they mean?  I know that a girl is more delicate than a boy, a being to be sheltered and cared for; that seems natural.  I accept that.  But it goes too far.  Una does what she pleases.  Why shouldn’t she?  What is the meaning of unconventional morality?  And why unconventional?  Is morality so vague a term that there can be any sort of doubt as to its real meaning?  And is Una any the less moral because she chooses to be unconventional?  Una!  I’d stake my life on her morality and innate refinement.  No girl sacrifices her youth in the interests of others less fortunate than herself without being fine clear through.  Then what did Marcia mean?  And what could Una mean when she said her reputation was in danger?  The very thought of my having harmed her, even by imputation, in the minds of others makes me desperately unhappy.  And what, what on earth could Marcia suspect of me or of Una to place us both in so false a light?  What could Marcia mean in speaking in that way about Una’s visit here when she herself came—­” He bit the word off abruptly and came to a stop.  Some instinct—­some baser instinct that Marcia was a part of, made frankness impossible.  I could have finished his sentence for him but I didn’t.  Instead, I rose suddenly to a sitting posture, my tongue loosened.

“Bah!” I muttered.  “The spleen of a jealous woman; it stops nowhere—­at nothing!”

“But what was there in the story,” he persisted, “to cause so much tension?  I felt it in the air, Roger.  It was in the looks of those about me, in Una’s face.  She was troubled.  I had to speak.”

“You did well, Jerry.  You had to speak—­to defend her—­”

“Against what?”

“The results of her own imprudence,” I said slowly, feeling my way with difficulty.  “Una’s visits here and at the cabin were not what are called conventional.”

“Conventional!  Perhaps not.  But where does the question of morality come in?” he went on boring straight at the mark.

“It doesn’t,” I remarked calmly.  “It seems to me that Una’s reply was quite clear upon that point.”

He frowned.  “Yes, but she said that Marcia’s mind wasn’t clean, or that’s what she meant.  That’s a terrible thing to say and Una shouldn’t have said it.  She shouldn’t have, Roger.”

“She had to defend herself,” I muttered.  “That’s the privilege of the poorest beast of the woods.”

“Yes,” he said slowly, “but it has upset me, given me a new view of things, of women, of life.  What is this terrible thing that threatens them, that they fear and court at the hands of men?  They act it in their advances and sudden defenses.  I’ve learned that much—­Even Una—­Why, Roger, there’s something that they’re more jealous of than they are of life itself.  Reputation!  That’s what Una called it.  Una—­who’s giving up her life to try to make people better!  If a girl like Una has to defend herself, then the world is a rotten place and Marcia—­”