Unwise laws make immoral nations."
"But you have gone about this business in such an extraordinary way,
Ideala," I said. "You seem to have tried to make it appear as bad for
yourself as you can. Why did you not leave your husband when Lorrimer
advised you to?"
"If I had gone then I should have been obliged to live somewhere else--
a long way from Lorrimer; and I might never have seen him again."
"And do you mean to say you decided to endure a life that had become
hateful to you in every way, simply for the sake of seeing this
gentleman occasionally?"
"Yes. Ah! you do not know how good he is, nor how he raises me! I never
knew the sort of creature I was until he told me. He said once, when we
quarrelled, that I was fanciful, sentimental, lackadaisical,
hysterical, and in an unhealthy state of mind, and yet--"
I made a gesture of impatience, and she stopped.
"But, Ideala," I asked her, after a little pause, "have you never felt
that what you are doing is wrong?"
"I cannot say that exactly," she answered. "I knew that certain social
conventions forbade the thing--at least I began to acknowledge this to
myself after a time.
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