"Yes, I do. And I know that he loves you. There is no mistaking the way a man turns to a woman every time she begins to speak. But on that score I have no fears. I know that you not only must have the high principles of the women of your race, but that you are too much a woman-of-the-world to enter upon a _liaison_, which would mean constant lying, fear, blackmail by servants, and general wretchedness. And I have perfect faith in him. Even a scoundrel will hesitate a long while before he makes himself responsible for the future of a girl in your position, and Mr. North is not a scoundrel but an honourable gentleman. Moreover he knows that a scandal would ruin him in his Puritanical State; and he adores his sons, who are prouder of him than if he were ten Presidents. But the world can talk and continue to talk, and to act as viciously about an imprudent friendship as about a _liaison_, for it has no means of proving anything and likes to believe the worst. Now, I shan't say any more. You are capable of doing your own thinking. Only do think--please." Betty nodded to her mother, and went to her boudoir and sat there for hours. Nothing could have put the ugly practical side of her romance so precisely before her as her mother's black and white statement, full of the little colloquial phrases with which an un-ambitious world expresses itself. Even for him, Betty reflected, she could not endure vulgar gossip, and wondered how any high-bred woman could for any man. "For what else does civilization mean," she thought, "if those of us that have its highest advantages are not wiser and more fastidious than the mob? And unless a woman is ready to go and live in a cave, she cannot be happy in the loss of the world's regard, for it can make her uncomfortable in quite a thousand little ways. Expediency is the root of all morality. It is stupid to be unmoral, and that is the long and the short of it. I would marry him to-morrow if I had to cook for him, if he were dishonoured by his country, if he were smitten suddenly with ill-health and never could walk again. I am willing to go through life alone for his sake, even without seeing him, and after he is dead and gone. I love him absolutely, and if there is another world I must meet him there. But I am not willing to become a social pariah on his account." She never had permitted her mind to linger on the practical aspect of a different relationship, to admit that such a chapter was possible outside of her imagination, but she did so now, deliberately. She knew that what her mother had intimated was true, that the happiness to be got out of it would amount to very little, and that the day would come when she would say that it was not worth the price. There were many times when she was not capable of reasoning coldly on this question, but she had been listening for two hours to Senator French on the restriction of immigration, and felt all intellect.