I have a friend, a public school teacher in Chicago,--Miss Jessie G----, who holds advanced views on these matters and admits that she herself has been a sex transgressor. She has never been sordid or mercenary, she has always believed that she was actuated by sincere affection, but the fact remains that she has had several affairs with men. She has broken the moral law. And while she professes not to regret this and insists that she would repeat these affairs if she had to live her life over again, yet, I have felt in talking with her that this cannot possibly be true. Miss G---- has fine instincts, is fond of music, is proud of her profession and shrinks from the thought that she might be considered _declassee_; at the same time she _knows_ that on more than one occasion she has been treated coldly by men and women familiar with the facts of her life. For example, at summer hotels, in spite of her good looks and apparent respectability, she has been denied introductions to charming women who would disapprove of her behavior. _That hurts!_ Even the bravest of our advanced women thinkers know in their hearts that they writhe under the pity or scorn of their sister women. It is certain that a decent woman who enters into irregular relations with a man whom she loves must endure great distress of mind; her relations with this man are at best unsatisfactory. She accepts the disadvantages of wifehood and foregoes the advantages. She can see her adored one only with difficulty at uncertain times and places. She lives in constant fear of discovery. She is doomed to torturing loneliness for, in the nature of things, she cannot have her lover with her whenever she longs to have him, there must be days and weeks of the inevitable separation. Nor dare she write to him freely, lest the letters fall into wrong hands. In no way may she reveal her love, the proudest treasure in her life, but must hide it like a thing of shame. "My poor child," I would say to such a woman, if I might, "remember that the hard test comes when things go wrong, when money fails, when beauty fades. Suppose your beloved falls ill. You cannot go to him, speak to him, minister to him on his bed of pain, though your heart is breaking. Even if he is dying, you can only wait ... wait in anguish of soul for some cold or covert message. You have no rights at his side that the family respect--_his_ family. Who are you? Are you his wife? No! Then you are nothing, less than nothing; you are the temptress, _the mistress_! You love him? Bah! Can such a woman love?"