Mrs. Dykman went on: “Moreover—although it is difficult for you to accept such a truth in your present frame of mind—the affair did you good, and your chances of happiness are greater than if you took into matrimony neither experience nor the memory of mistakes. If you had met Quintard first and married him, you would have carried with you through life the regret that you had never realized your wayward dreams. You would have continued to invest an intrigue with all the romance of your imagination; now you know exactly how little there is in it. What is more, you have learned something of the difference in men, and will be able to appreciate a man like Quintard. You will realize how few men there are in the world who satisfy all the wants of a woman’s nature. There is no effect in a picture without both light and shade. The life you will have with Quintard will be the more complete and beautiful by its contrast to the emptiness and baldness of your attempt with Cryder.” Hermia placed her elbows on her knees and pressed her hands against her face. “You are appealing to my intellect,” she said; “and what you say is very clever, and worthy of you. But, if I had met Quintard in time, he would have dispelled all my false illusions and made me more than content with what he offered in return. No, I have made a horrible mistake, and no logic will help me.” “But look at another side of the question. You have given yourself to one man; Heaven knows how many love affairs Grettan Quintard has had. You know this; you heard him acknowledge it in so many words. And yet you find no fault with him. Why, then, is your one indiscretion so much greater than his many? Your life until you met Quintard was your own to do with as it pleased you. If you chose to take the same privilege that the social code allows to men, the relative sin is very small; about positive right and wrong I do not pretend to know anything. With the uneven standard of morality set up by the world and by religion, who does? But relatively you are so much less guilty than Quintard that the matter is hardly worth discussing. And, if he never discovers that you give him less than he believes, it will not hurt him. When you are older, you will have a less tender regard for men than you have to-day.” Hermia leaned back and sighed heavily. “Oh, it is not the abstract sin,” she said. “It is that _it was_, and that _now_ I love.” “Hermia,” said Mrs. Dykman, sternly, “this is unworthy of a woman of your brains and character. You have the strongest will of any woman I have ever known; take your past by the throat and put it behind you. Stifle it and forget it. You have the power, and you must surely have the desire.” “No,” said Hermia, “I have neither the power nor the desire. That is the one thing in my life beyond the control of my will.”