"It is, Rita," said the girl, smiling out of her dark eyes--deep brown wells of truth that the other gazed into and saw a young soul there, fearless and doomed. "Valerie," she said, shivering, "you won't do--_that_--will you?" "Dear, I cannot marry him, and I love him. What else am I to do?" "Well, then--then you'd better marry him!" stammered Rita, frightened. "It's better for you! It's better--" "For _me_? Yes, but how about him?" "What do you care about him!" burst out Rita, almost incoherent in her fright and anger. "He's a man; he can take care of himself. Don't think of him. It isn't your business to consider him. If he wants to marry you it's his concern after all. Let him do it! Marry him and let him fight it out with his friends! After all what does a man give a girl that compares with what she gives him? Men--men--" she stammered--"they're all alike in the depths of their own hearts. We are incidents to them--no matter how they say they love us. They _can't_ love as we do. They're not made for it! We are part of the game to them; they are the whole game to us; we are, at best, an important episode in their careers; they are our whole careers. Oh, Valerie! Valerie! listen to me, child! That man could go on living and painting and eating and drinking and sleeping and getting up to dress and going to bed to sleep, if you lay dead in your grave. But if you loved him, and were his wife--or God forgive me!--his mistress, the day he died _you_ would die, though your body might live on. I know--_I_ know, Valerie. Death--whether it be his body or his love, ends all for the woman who really loves him. Woman's loss is eternal. But man's loss is only temporary--he is made that way, fashioned so. Now I tell you the exchange is not fair--it has never been fair--never will be, never can be. And I warn you not to give this man the freshness of your youth, the happy years of your life, your innocence, the devotion which he will transmute into passion with his accursed magic! I warn you not to forsake the tranquillity of ignorance, the blessed immunity from that devil's paradise that you are already gazing into--" "Rita! Rita! What are you saying?" "I scarcely know, child. I am trying to save you from lifelong unhappiness--trying to tell you that--that men are not worth it--" "How do you know?" There was a silence, then Rita, very pale and quiet, leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and framing her face with her hands. "I had my lesson," she said. "You! Oh, my darling--forgive me! I did not know--" Rita suffered herself to be drawn into the younger girl's impulsive embrace; they both cried a little, arms around each other, faltering out question and answer in unsteady whispers: "Were you married, dearest?" "No." "Oh--I am _so_ sorry, dear--" "So am I.... Do you blame me for thinking about men as I do think?" "Didn't you love--him?" "I thought I did.... I was too young to know.... It doesn't matter now--"