Absurd! But, yes, how she remembered it now! “Very dangerous being a woman,” Keggo had said. “Men go into dangers but they come out of them and go home to tea. That’s what it is with men, Rosalie. They can always get out. They can always come back. They never belong to a thing, heart and soul, body and mind. Rosalie, women do. That’s why it is so very, very dangerous being a woman. Women can’t come back. They take to a thing, anything, and go deep enough, and they’re its; they never, never will get away from it; they never, never will be able to come back out of it. Rosalie, I tell you this, when a woman gives herself, forgets moderation and gives herself to anything, she is its captive for ever. She may think she can come back but she can’t come back. For a woman there is no comeback. They don’t issue return tickets to women. For women there is only departure; there is no return.” Poor Keggo! Poor Keggo had of course founded her theory upon her own bitter plight. How she had given her case away when she had said, “Look at me!” It applied to her, of course, or to any woman--or man for that matter--who drank or drugged. It applied not in the least to such a case as this of her own. Keggo had tried to apply it. She had said, “You have a theory of life. You are bent upon a career in life. Suppose you ever wanted to come back?” She had laughed and declared she never would want to come back. Well, look how absurd all poor Keggo’s idea was now being proved! It had suddenly occurred to her that it might at some future time be required of her to come back; and all she had to do was just--to come back. No difficulty about it whatsoever! No struggle! Indeed, and fondly she touched that by her side which had called up these thoughts, she would come back joyously. Of course she would! Field and Company, ambition, that for if and when her darlings called her! Yes, wrong every way, that poor Keggo. Dangerous being a woman, she had said, and it was not dangerous. It could be, and she had proved it, a state that could be lived full in every aspect,--full in freedom, full in endeavour, full in love, full in motherhood. Dangerous! A week ago, inimical to this advent, injurious; now, in this advent’s presence, and with this resolution gladly dedicated to it, only and wholly glorious. This one! Come after connection, come in contrition, come to call her back when she should need to be called, the little tiny one, the belovedest one, the Benjamin one--her Benji! CHAPTER VII