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Grand, Sarah

"Ideala"

Lorrimer's chest was strong.
Later, when Lorrimerre turned, and they were both at work, he was
interrupted in the middle of some cynical remarks on over-population,
and the good it would do to check it by allowing the spread of
epidemics and encouraging men to kill each other, by the arrival of
another old woman in great distress.
His manner changed in a moment. "I am afraid he is worse," he said to
her most kindly.
She could only shake her head.
"There is the order," he went on, giving her a paper--"get him these
things at once, and tell him I will come as soon as I am disengaged."
When they were alone again, Ideala looked at Lorrimer and laughed.
"Another instance, I shrewdly suspect, of the difference between theory
and practice," she observed.
He brushed his hand back over his forehead and hair, a trifle
disconcerted. "He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow,"
he said.
"And one can approve of capital punishment without having the nerve to
see it inflicted, I suppose," Ideala commented, "and be convinced that
it would be good for the human race to have a certain number of their
children drowned, like kittens, every year, and yet not be able to see
a single one disposed of in that way without risking one's own life to
save it.


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