"Yes; and in order to bolster up this absurdity we have to corrupt our whole literature. Young girls and men are brought up with the idea that God, in some mysterious providence, has arranged for us a special affinity--that there can be only one person to love in the whole world. Why, some are so fanatic that they are certain that they shall go on together riding a star for a few million years through a few trillion spaces! Now, that's what I call fooling your intelligence!" "Yet I know those who have been married forty years and still love!" said Massingale seriously. "As comrades or as lovers?" asked Estelle quickly. "Comradeship--yes, that I admit: comradeship between man and woman, each equal, each free, not forced to account to the other, comradeship such as exists between you men--absolute loyalty, absolute trust, each working for the same object, working together, an object outside of yourselves. That is life and liberty! And what is the other--your marriage? Each sacrificing what he doesn't want to sacrifice, unless, which is worse, one does all the sacrificing. What happens now? A woman exists as a free being for twenty--twenty-five years; then a man comes along and says, in so many words: "'If you have lived a virtuous life--which I have not--I will allow you to renounce all your male friends, or retain those whom I approve of as acquaintances, to limit your horizon to my home, to bear my children, to accept my opinions, never to be interested in any other man but me, to keep my house, amuse me when I'm tired, convince me of my superiority over all other men, go where I must go, and age before I must age; and in return for these favors I will swear to convince you that I have loved no other woman but you, will blind my eyes to all other women but you, and, if I die first, you will find me waiting patiently by the pearly gates!'" Her listeners acclaimed this sally with shrieks of laughter. "May I ask, out of curiosity," said Massingale,--for, these conversations being serious, frankness was the rule,--"how you feel toward my sex--your oppressors?" "Being a healthy woman who enjoys life," said Estelle simply, "I like men very much--better than women, who are to me usually nothing but sounding-boards. More, it pleases me exceedingly to attract men, and to be attracted!" "And if you fall in love, temporarily? Or perhaps--" "Not at all! I desire very much to find a man big enough, courageous enough, so that I could love him. When I do, I shall live with him openly!" Massingale looked up, rather startled; but Estelle, without embarrassment, in her simple fanatic way, continued: "I should hope that it might be for life. If it were not, there should be no tyranny. Only, whatever I do will be done honestly and openly: when such a man comes I shall announce it frankly to my friends and to those who have a right to know!"