And he flattered himself that on this side, his public life, he would always be immovable, no matter what disorder she might exercise over the rest of his existence. This brought her a strange feeling of being outlawed, of standing beyond the pale. She resented it fiercely, not realizing, perhaps, how much she cared, turning her anger against society, vowing vengeance, more and more determined to flout and affront it. Denied complete liberty to participate in his life, she had resolved to bring him into hers. He agreed readily to meet her friends, seeing in this a way to save appearances. Ida Summers amused him, but it was Estelle Monks who interested him most. Like most women of advanced ideas, she held her opinions, not so much as convictions, but as a sort of revealed truth which it was her duty to spread; and she was determined to inflict them on her listeners, crushing out all disbelief, restless and unhappy before opposition. To her, marriage was the arch-enemy. Woman suffrage she dismissed lightly. "That's of so little account. Of course it will come, sooner or later. That does not interest me. The great question between man and woman is marriage!" "Perhaps it were better to say the greatest problem that the human race has had to consider," responded Massingale, smiling. "That's why we keep putting off its readjustment. What would you do? Abolish it?" "Some day, yes!" said Estelle, without evasion. "I say flatly that two human beings weren't made to live together all the time. It may happen once in a million times, and then--do we ever know? What I hate about marriage is, it is so intellectually debasing: one has to lie all the time to make the other happy, and then you end by lying to yourself!" Massingale, awakened from a tolerant amusement to a quick curiosity by her boldness, shifted to a more alert position, asking: "Just in what way?" "The thing I want to do," said Estelle Monks, her face lighting up with enthusiasm, "is to think honestly, not to fool myself! Now what is marriage? It is really an institution for the assembling and transmission of property." ("Ah, she's been dipping into socialism," thought Massingale.) "Good! But, in order to make it convincing, we Americans try to give it a romantic basis!" "And you think that's worse?" said Dodo, opening her eyes. "Much! That's where the lie begins! We swear not only to live together in a business partnership, but to love and adore each other, and to love no one else for the rest of our lives." "Why, Estelle!" exclaimed Dodo, who was profoundly shocked in her deepest romanticism.