“It is easily explained. I say nothing whatever of passing fancies, infatuations, passions, which are best disposed of in a temporary union. I refer to love alone. When a man loves a woman he wants her constant companionship, with no restraint but that exercised by his own judicious will and art. He wants to live with her, to travel with her, to be able to seek her at all hours, to follow his own will, unquestioned and untrammeled. This, outside of conventional bonds, is impossible without scandal, and no man who loves a woman will have her lightly spoken of if he can help it. But let the priest read his formula, and the man so bound is monarch of his own desires, and can snap his fingers at the world. I have neither patience nor respect for the man who must have the stimulus of uncertainty to feed his love. He is a poor, weak, unimaginative creature, who is dependent upon conditions for that which he should find in his own character.” “I never expected to hear you talk like this, Mr. Quintard!” exclaimed Miss Starbruck, “for you have been a very immoral man.” Quintard looked at her with an amused smile. “Why immoral, Miss Starbruck?” “You have—well, people say——” stammered poor Miss Starbruck, and then broke down. Mrs. Dykman came to the rescue. “Miss Starbruck means that you have lived with a number of women and have not taken any particular pains to hide the fact.” “Is that immoral? I think not. I have lived with no woman who had anything to lose, and I have lived with no woman who was not my equal intellectually. Companionship was quite as much an object as passion. I never took a woman out of the streets and hung jewels upon her and adored her for her empty beauty, and with a certain class of women I have never exchanged a dozen words since my callow youth. Furthermore, I never won a woman’s affections from her husband. If I ever got them he had lost them first. Therefore, I protest against being called immoral.” “If you want to go into the question of moral ethics,” said Cryder, “you cannot plead guiltless altogether of immorality. In openly living with a woman who is not your wife you outrage the conventions of the community and set it a bad example. It may be argued that you do less harm than those who pursue the sort of life you let alone; but the _positive_ harm is there.” All looked at Quintard, wondering how he would reply. Even Hermia felt that he was driven into a corner.