“This town’s Sodom and Gomorrah rolled into one,” declared Hannah who, from early habit, was occasionally prone to use scriptural parallels.  And after a moment’s silence she inquired:  “Who’s this man that’s payin’ her attention now?”

“I don’t know,” replied Janet, “I don’t know that there’s anybody.”

“I guess there is,” said Hannah.  “I used to think that that Wiley was low enough, but I could see him.  It was some satisfaction.  I could know the worst, anyhow....  I guess it’s about time for another flood.”

This talk had left Janet in one of these introspective states so frequent in her recent experience.  Her mother had used the words “right” and “wrong.”  But what was “right,” or “wrong?” There was no use asking Hannah, who—­she perceived—­was as confused and bewildered as herself.  Did she refuse to encourage Mr. Ditmar because it was wrong? because, if she acceded to his desires, and what were often her own, she would be punished in an after life?  She was not at all sure whether she believed in an after life,—­a lack of faith that had, of late, sorely troubled her friend Eda Rawle, who had “got religion” from an itinerant evangelist and was now working off, in a “live” church, some of the emotional idealism which is the result of a balked sex instinct in young unmarried women of a certain mentality and unendowed with good looks.  This was not, of course, Janet’s explanation of the change in her friend, of whom she now saw less and less.  They had had arguments, in which neither gained any ground.  For the first time in their intercourse, ideas had come between them, Eda having developed a surprising self-assertion when her new convictions were attacked, a dogged loyalty to a scheme of salvation that Janet found neither inspiring nor convincing.  She resented being prayed for, and an Eda fervent in good works bored her more than ever.  Eda was deeply pained by Janet’s increasing avoidance of her company, yet her heroine-worship persisted.  Her continued regard for her friend might possibly be compared to the attitude of an orthodox Baptist who has developed a hobby, let us say, for Napoleon Bonaparte.

Janet was not wholly without remorse.  She valued Eda’s devotion, she sincerely regretted the fact, on Eda’s account as well as her own, that it was a devotion of no use to her in the present crisis nor indeed in any crisis likely to confront her in life:  she had felt instinctively from the first that the friendship was not founded on, mental harmony, and now it was brought home to her that Eda’s solution could never be hers.  Eda would have been thrilled on learning of Ditmar’s attentions, would have advocated the adoption of a campaign leading up to matrimony.  In matrimony, for Eda, the soul was safe.  Eda would have been horrified that Janet should have dallied with any other relationship; God would punish her.  Janet, in her conflict between alternate longing and repugnance, was not concerned with the laws and retributions of God.  She felt, indeed, the need of counsel, and knew not where to turn for it, —­the modern need for other than supernatural sanctions.  She did not resist her desire for Ditmar because she believed, in the orthodox sense, that it was wrong, but because it involved a loss of self-respect, a surrender of the personality from the very contemplation of which she shrank.  She was a true daughter of her time.