'You little cur.' Victoria smiled; she could feel her lips baring her eye teeth. 'Fool.' Edward stared at her. Passion was stifling his words. 'It's a lot you know about life, schoolmaster,' she sneered. 'Who are you to preach at me? Is it your business if I choose to sell my body instead of selling my labour?' 'You're disgraced.' His voice went down to a hoarse whisper. 'Disgraced.' Victoria felt a wave of heat pass over her body. 'Disgraced, you fool? Will anybody ever teach you what disgrace is? There's no such thing as disgrace for a woman. All women are disgraced when they're born. We're parasites, toys. That's all we are. You've got two kinds of uses for us, lords and masters! One kind is honourable labour, as you say, namely the work undertaken by what you call the lower classes; the other's a share in the nuptial couch, whether illegal or legal. Yes, your holy matrimony is only another name for my profession.' 'You've no right to say that,' cried Edward. 'You're trying to drag down marriage to your level. When a woman marries she gives herself because she loves; then her sacrifice is sublime.' He stopped for a second. Idealism, sentimentalism, other names for ignorance of life, clashed in his self-conscious brain without producing light. 'Oh, Victoria,' he said, 'you don't know how awful it is for me to find you like this, my little sister . . . of course you can't love him . . . if you'd married him it would have been different.' 'Ah, Edward, so that's your philosophy. You say that though I don't love him, if I'd married him it would have been different. So you won't let me surrender to a man unless I can trick him or goad him into binding himself to me for life. If I don't love him I may marry him and make his life a hell and I shall be a good woman; but I mustn't live with him illegally so that he may stick to me only so long as he cares for me.' 'I didn't say that,' stammered Edward. 'Of course, it's wrong to marry a man you don't care for . . . but marriage is different, it sanctifies.' 'Sanctifies! Nothing sanctifies anything. Our deeds are holy or unholy in themselves. Oh, understand me well, I claim no ethical revelation; I don't care whether my deeds are holy or not. I judge nothing, not even myself. All I say is that your holy bond is a farce; if women were free--that is, trained, able and allowed to earn fair wages for fair labour--then marriage might be holy. But marriage for a woman is a monetary contract. It means that she is kept, clothed, amused; she is petted like a favourite dog, indulged like a spoiled child. In exchange she gives her body.' 'No, no.' 'Yes, yes. And the difference between a married woman and me is her superior craft, her ability to secure a grip upon a man. You respect her because she is permanent, as you respect a vested interest.' The flush rose again in Edward's cheeks. As he lost ground he fortified his obstinacy.