man is, there will be
danger. The only case where there is no danger is where there is no
physical attraction. I might have been safe enough with some anemic
saint, but not with one who had pulsing red blood in his
veins--certainly not!

* * * * *

Here is a characteristic episode written before I married Julian, during
those months of hard struggle in New York:

"Last night Kendall Brown talked to me like an angel.

"'I'll give you a case in point, Pen,' he was saying. 'A beautiful woman
like you, an exquisite, lithe creature is sitting on a sofa under a soft
light, leaning against pillows--just as you are now; and a man like me,
a poor adoring devil, a regular worm, is sitting at the other end of the
sofa looking at this woman, drinking in her loveliness, thrilling to the
mysterious lights in her eyes, the caressing tenderness of her voice and
all the rest of it. This man wants to reach out and take this woman in
his arms--draw her to him--press his lips to hers. But he doesn't do it,
because--well, she wouldn't stand for it. Besides, it isn't right.
Perhaps she is a married woman. Perhaps he is married.

"'Now what I want to know is why this chap can't behave himself and
regard his fair friend as he would an exquisite rose in a
garden--somebody else's garden. Why can't he say to himself: "This woman
is one of God's loveliest creatures, but she does not belong to me. I
can look at her, I can rejoice in her beauty, but I mustn't touch her or
try to harm her." Why can't he say that to himself? Isn't it a wicked
thing for a man to crush and bruise and destroy a lovely flower, to
scatter its color and perfume just for a wayward impulse?'

"I shall never forget the earnestness, the tenderness in the eyes and
voice of this harum scarum poet whose record in women conquests makes a
rich chapter in the annals of Greenwich Village. At this moment he was
quite sincere, or thought he was. There were tears in his eyes.

"And what did I do? I rose from my pillows and said, with a little laugh
and toss of my head: 'Very pretty, Kendall, you ought to make a poem of
it.' Then I went over to the victrola and set it going in a fox-trot,
one of my favorites. I was restless and began to move about slowly to
the music while Kendall watched me with a different light growing in his
eyes. I wore a clinging white house garment--I suppose I was at my best.

"'Let's dance it, Pen, just gently so as not to d