I am not puritanical, but I confess having held you to a higher plane than others of my acquaintance, and I find it hard to realize my evident mistake.  Yet, surely, you cannot fully comprehend what it is you are choosing, I was with you last night, true, but I considered it no honor to appear upon that stage, even with the ‘Heart of the World,’ and it hurt me even then to behold you in the midst of such surroundings.  But deliberately to take part in the regular variety bill is a vastly more serious matter.  It is almost a total surrender to evil, and involves a daily and nightly association with vice which cannot but prove most repugnant to true womanhood.  Surely, you do not know the true nature of this place?”

“Then tell it to me.”

“I will, and without any mincing of words.  The Gayety is a mere adjunct to the Poodle-Dog saloon and the gambling hell up-stairs.  They are so closely connected that on the stage last evening I could easily hear the click of ivory chips and the clatter of drinking glasses.  One man owns and controls the entire outfit, and employs for his variety stage any kind of talent which will please the vicious class to which he caters.  All questioning as to morality is thoroughly eliminated.  Did you comprehend this?”

The young girl bowed slightly, her face as grave as his own, and again colorless, the whiteness of her cheeks a marked contrast to her dark hair.

“I understood those conditions fully.”

“And yet consented to appear there?”

She shook back her slightly disarranged hair, and looked him directly in the eyes, every line of her face stamped with resolve.

“Mr. Winston, in the first place, I deny your slightest right to question me in this manner, or to pass moral judgment upon my motives.  I chance to possess a conscience of my own, and your presumption is almost insulting.  While you were absent in pursuit of Albrecht, the manager of the Gayety, having chanced to learn the straits we were in, called upon me here with his proposal.  It appeared an honorable one, and the offer was made in a gentlemanly manner.  However, I did not accept at the time, for the plain reason that I had no desire whatever to appear upon that stage, and in the midst of that unpleasant environment.  I decided to await your return, and learn whether such a personal sacrifice of pride would be necessary.  Now, I believe I recognize my duty, and am not afraid to perform it, even in the face of your displeasure.  I am going to deliver the parting scene from the ‘Heart of the World,’ and I do not imagine my auditors will be any the worse for hearing it.  I certainly regret that the Gayety is an adjunct to a saloon; I should greatly prefer not to appear there, but, unfortunately, it is the only place offering me work.  I may be compelled to sink a certain false pride in order to accept, but I shall certainly not sacrifice one iota of my womanhood.  You had no cause even to intimate such a thing.”