She hesitated. "It depends on circumstances--on the public one is addressing. The set of people that the Van Siderens get about them don't care for the truth or falseness of a doctrine. They are attracted simply by its novelty." "And yet it was in just such a set of people that you and I met, and learned the truth from each other." "That was different." "I thought you considered it one of the deepest social wrongs that such things never _are_ discussed before young girls; but that is beside the point, for I don't remember seeing any young girl in my audience to-day--" "Except Una Van Sideren!" He turned slightly and pushed back the lamp at his elbow. "Oh, Miss Van Sideren--naturally--" "Why naturally?" "The daughter of the house--would you have had her sent out with her governess?" "If I had a daughter I should not allow such things to go on in my house!" Westall, stroking his mustache, leaned back with a faint smile. "I fancy Miss Van Sideren is quite capable of taking care of herself." "No girl knows how to take care of herself--till it's too late." "And yet you would deliberately deny her the surest means of self-defence?" "What do you call the surest means of self-defence?" "Some preliminary knowledge of human nature in its relation to the marriage tie." She made an impatient gesture. "How should you like to marry that kind of a girl?" "Immensely--if she were my kind of girl in other respects." She took up the argument at another point. "You are quite mistaken if you think such talk does not affect young girls. Una was in a state of the most absurd exaltation--" She broke off, wondering why she had spoken. Westall reopened a magazine which he had laid aside at the beginning of their discussion. "What you tell me is immensely flattering to my oratorical talent--but I fear you overrate its effect. I can assure you that Miss Van Sideren doesn't have to have her thinking done for her. She's quite capable of doing it herself." "You seem very familiar with her mental processes!" flashed unguardedly from his wife. He looked up quietly from the pages he was cutting. "I should like to be," he answered. "She interests me." II If there be a distinction in being misunderstood, it was one denied to Julia Westall when she left her first husband. Every one was ready to excuse and even to defend her. The world she adorned agreed that John Arment was "impossible," and hostesses gave a sigh of relief at the thought that it would no longer be necessary to ask him to dine.