"Married women may. They _may_ everything. They may be divorced as often as they want, and carry their heads just as high as before. As for us, each time we're thrust lower into the world of prostitutes; and the oftener we change, the more we become free booty. All very well if we have money of our own. But neither you nor I have. They hover over us like vultures ready to swoop down upon us. If she's allowed herself to be supported by him--and _him_--and _him_, why isn't she to be had for _my_ good money, too? That's the reason we must hold fast to the one we have, no matter how small and horrid he is, no matter how repulsive we think him. "I don't understand," said Lilly. "If you're with a man, you love him." "Oh--do you mean to say you loved every man you were with?" "Why, there weren't so many," replied Lilly. "Beside my husband, the general"--she could not deny herself the joy of uttering that proud word--"there was only one other, and now--here--" "Oh, stuff!" cried Mrs. Jula in righteous indignation. "Do you want to blossom in my eyes as a rose of virtue?" Lilly protested she was speaking the truth. Mrs. Jula could not credit it. "Why, then, you're not one of us! You ought really be a judge's wife." Lilly laughed. She who had always thought sentence had long before been pronounced upon her immoral conduct, now heard herself ridiculed for her excess of virtue. "Oh, if I were to tell you the stories of all the women we meet," continued Mrs. Jula. "One of them goes with girls in secret. One rents out rooms to students, but only to students she likes. And then there's one"--her voice sank to a whisper--"who fetches her lovers in from the street." Lilly shuddered. "What! I've sat next to a woman like that, and never suspected it!" Mrs. Jula's eyes glowed into space. "It's dreadful, isn't it?" she said, and laughed. "Well, it doesn't bother me. I have my poems. They lend sanctity to my acts and wash me clean again. It's for their sake I do it all. I need sensations, yes, I need sensations. I must feel my blood chase through my veins. I must study, study--something new in each one. No matter how inane a man may be, so inane that a thimble would hold his soul, nevertheless he has one hour of intoxication to give you, one hour in which all the bells chime and even the spheres make their heavenly music. And the more men you possess, the more life you possess, the more souls you creep into. All the doors of life fly open. All the secrets are revealed. If you can hear the pulsebeat of a stranger, can feel it under your fingers--he's yours--he's you yourself. Then you live one life more. Yes, that's life. That's what I call life." Lilly said to herself she could not possibly take this talk seriously, though hot and cold waves shivered through her body. "I don't understand what you say," she replied, and rose. Mrs. Jula did not even hear her. A mystic fire smouldered in her eyes. She looked like a priestess sacrificing to dark gods.