“But, Bernice,” she said at last, “why should you do it? I’m not rebuking you, dear. I’m asking for information. I can’t understand it. Why didn’t an intuitive reserve and decency prompt you to conserve yourself? Why didn’t the very greatness of your love urge you to nurture and cherish those things which lie at the root of it—not squander and spatter and waste and cheapen them?” “I don’t know, Madge. Somehow I just felt devilish. I wanted to do something shockingly wicked. I wanted to get as far away from all the goodness and decency I’ve known all my life as I could. That’s the truth, Madge. At the moment I didn’t care. I’ll tell you more truth: I gloried in it! Yes, I did! I was glad I was wicked—until—until I saw I was going to face all the penalty.” “I can’t understand,” murmured Madelaine. “No, perhaps not. But you might if you knew my mother. Ever since I was a tiny girl, Madge, I’ve lived in an atmosphere of things that were ‘strictly proper.’ Oh, how tired and sick I grew of things that were ‘strictly proper.’ Mother always gave me to understand I was different than other children, I was better quality. So I had to live up to that better quality. It was awful dull and tedious. At times it maddened me. Mother lay awake nights worrying about her culture—and mine. After she’d married dad, she made the discovery that on her mother’s side, a few generations back, she’d descended from a duchess. Being born in a two-room apartment over a Rutland Quick Lunch and then discovering there was the blood of a duchess in her veins, she had a horrible time with herself, and with dad too, forgetting ‘Quick Lunch’ beginnings. Dad was a money-maker. He never worried much about his culture. Beside, I don’t think they were very happily married. He didn’t understand her. He let her go her way as she pleased. Just paid the bills. So in the second generation, meaning poor me, mother determined the ‘Quick Lunch’ business should be outbred if it cost her a leg. And I lived our royalty from Monday morning to Saturday night, double doses on Sunday. And when I got old enough to see how much fun I was missing by not being just natural and normal, without consciously thinking about our culture every minute, I rebelled. Madge, dear, why is it their culture gives some people such a horrible, distressing time, making them miserable and wooden-like, instead of natural and joyous?” Madelaine was silent a moment before answering.