"That's a horse of another colour.... Though when you come right down to it I don't see that a family cuts much ice. Children are for the most part accidents. They just happen. Their conception is the result of carelessness or laziness. Their ultimate arrival is accepted a good deal like a deluge or a fire; you do everything you can to stop it--to the verge of self-destruction--then you throw up your hands and accept the inevitable. There isn't one love child in a million. I mean a child of love in the sense of premeditated and welcome conception. Men and women marry for one of a half dozen reasons, most commonly because they believe they are in love. When the honeymoon wanes and you get right down to commonplace, every-day life in all its ugliness, we begin to feet that we've been buncoed. If we are truthful with ourselves we acknowledge a share of the bunco game. Way back in our subconscious mind the sensation of our courtship, the pursuit and the first mad moments of possession have stuck fast.... We fairly throb at the thought of them. We begin to hanker for a repetition of these sensuous dope-dreams.... Presently we are off hot for the chase ... and a little dash of the forbidden fruit acts as a stimulant. Like all stimulants it becomes necessary to increase the dose after a while to insure efficacy. That's where we begin to slop over...." The doctor leaned back with the air of one who is satisfied with his diagnosis. "We are getting away from the subject," I remarked caustically. "Not a bit of it ... we're running along converging lines. The stage is the mart for the prettiest and most magnetic of women. A pretty woman may be moral, but the chances are against it. Every man looks upon her as so much legitimate loot. They differ only in their methods of getting away with it. Sometimes they effect a legitimate sale: this is what our social system calls marriage. More often the rate of exchange is usurious on the part of the man. It varies from a bottle of wine and a few pretty clothes to a diamond necklace and equally brilliant promises.... Now here's where our lines converge. The stage is a good place to show goods. Our eternal chase bids us go in and look 'em over--and--if you are in a mood to trade--to say nothing of having the price--you'll find a bevy of ambitious beauties with a keen eye to business." "You infer, then, that the society lady sins for love only--and that the actress bestows her affection for purely mercenary motives?" "I don't make any such broad distinction as that--but I believe the actress has always an eye on the main chance and that she wouldn't let a little thing like love interfere with business.... The society woman, on the other hand, usually goes wrong because she's unhappily married and tries to make up for what's missing by stealing a little happiness on the side."