ving done anything to be ashamed of."

"O Lord! Am I as stupid as that comes to?"

"No! But I mean, you couldn't have done anything to be really ashamed
of."

"That's what I mean. I've done numberless things I'd give my right arm
not to have done."

"I mean really wicked things."

"Such as--"

"Oh--well, I mean being bad."

"Woman-bad or man-bad?"

"Bad for a woman."

"So what's bad for one is not bad for another."

"Well, not exactly, but there is a difference."

"If I told you that I had been very, very wicked in those mysterious
years, would it seem important to you?"

"Of course! Horribly! It couldn't help it, if a man cared much for a
woman."

"And if a woman cared a lot for a man, ought it to make a difference
what he had done before he met her?"

"Well, of course--but that's different."

"Why?"

"Oh, because it is."

"Men say 'Because!' too, I see."

"It's just shorthand with us. It means you know it so well there's no
need of explaining."

"Oh! Well, if you--I say, _if_ you were very much in love with me--"

"Which I--"

"Don't be odiously polite. I'm arguing, not fishing. If you were
deeply in love with me, would it make a good deal of difference to you
if several years ago I had been--oh, loose?"

"It would break my heart."

Marie Louise liked him the better for this, but she held to her
argument.

"All right. Now, still supposing that we loved each other, ought I
to inquire of you if the man of my possible choice had been
perfectly--well, spotless, all that time? Ought I expect that he was
saving himself up for me, feeling himself engaged to me, you might
say, long before he met me, and keeping perfectly true to his
future fiancee--ought I to expect that?"

He flushed a little as he mumbled:

"Hardly!"

She laughed a trifle bitterly:

"So we're there already?"

"Where?"

"At the double standard. What's crime for the goose is pastime for the
gander."

He did not intend to give up man's ancient prerogative.

"Well, it's better to have almost any standard than none, isn't it?"

"I wonder."

"The single standard is better than the sixteen to one--silver for men
and gold for women."

"Perhaps! But you men seem to believe in a sixteen to none. Mind you,
I'm not saying I've been bad."

"I knew you couldn't have been."

"Oh yes, I could have been--I'm not saying I wasn't. I'm not saying
anything at all. I'm saying that it's nobody's business but my own."

"Even