This is very different."
"Ideala, do you remember telling me once that you had a strange feeling
about yourself? that you thought you would be made to go down into some
great depth of sin and suffering, in order to learn what it is you have
to teach?"
"Ah, yes!" she answered, "but I have not gone down. I must obey my own
conscience, not yours; and my conscience tells me the thing is right
which you hold to be wrong. I am quite willing to believe it would be
wrong for you, but for me it is clearly right. You said the other day
he had lowered me. What a fiction that is! In what have I changed for
the worse? Do I fail in any duty of life since I knew him in which I
previously succeeded? Oh, no! he has not lowered me! Love like this
rounds a life and brings it to perfection; it could not wreck it."
"But, Ideala, you are going to fail in a duty; you are going to fail in
the most important duty of your life--your duty to society."
"I owe nothing to society," she answered, obstinately.
"I have always admired you," I pursued, "for not letting your own
experience warp your judgment.
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