“I don’t want that kind of courage which tramples on decent marriage customs. And you were the first to teach me the value of an irreproachable standing before the world.” “It’s easy for women like you, who know nothing of the miseries of an unequal marriage, to take a high moral stand,” said my old chum, turning whiter always as our talk sunk lower. I was afraid Julian would hear us and come down from the painting-room overhead. He never liked Jennie as heartily as I thought it his duty to like her. And he laughed at the little barnacles of whims which an isolated life fastened on her. All the time I was talking to her the fancied image of T’férgore was before my eyes. “How much more faithful will this man be to you,” I went on, “than he was to the woman he left one month ago? He has somehow cast a glamour over you. I know just how he looks--a great, whimpering, Falstaffian baby of a thing, coarse to his last fibre!” “Go on,” said Jennie. “If he were not coarse would he ever allow a woman standing related to him as wife to be slurred to his face? Would he be so ready to attach his mildewed life to yours without a blemish?” “I can’t hear you talk so,” said Jennie. “You’d better let me go away. I cannot stay in the house.” “You cannot go away,” I declared fiercely. “I understand now why parents have locked their daughters up.” “You are interfering with what does not concern you at all,” said Jennie, trembling, “and not in the least altering my determination. You cannot choose my fate for me. I have lived a lonely life year after year. Nobody considered me. Why am I to stand on nice points considering everybody? He thinks I can make him happy. I believe he will treat me kindly.” “You have every warrant for believing that,” I exclaimed, struggling to calm myself in the fear that I was going to make a scene. “I have,” said Jennie, with a kind of pride strange in her; “for he provided for the family to the full extent of his means, before separating from them.” “So he had children? And deserted them?” “Five,” replied Jennie in embarrassment. “Five children! And he provided for them by taking their father from them when they needed a father most!” “They are all boys but the youngest,” said Jennie. I knew now that I was going to make a scene, struggle against it as I might. “And is the smallest a little child yet?” “Not an exceedingly little child,” said Jennie, picking at her dress and not seeming to see the fingers at which she stared. “Two years old, I believe.” “Don’t you understand about family life? Don’t you see what a callous wretch is the man who can abandon his own flesh and blood? How will you ever close your eyes in sleep again if you help him in wronging that little child--that little child!” I stood up from my seat and groped toward her. The moment of my own weakness and terror was coming. Jennie took hold of me as she used to do at school.