of uniform divorce law is taken up, we
shall find that the Socialists are against it as a body. It is not that
they are opposed to divorce, but they do not believe in marriage.'"

"And does she know?" I asked.

"Would she say it publicly if it were not true?" demanded Mrs.
Blanderocks, glaring disapprovingly at me.

I rose to my feet. I will say for myself that my desire for knowledge is
greater even than my shyness, and usually overcomes it.

"I want to make a motion," I said, "that this man Gorky be deported--"
(loud applause)--"but before doing so I would like some one to explain
in as plain words as the nature of the subject will permit, just what he
has been guilty of." Dead silence broken by a voice saying: "He's a
foreigner."

"I'll tell you what he has done," cried Sarah Warner; "he came into this
country pretending that the woman who was with him was his wife; he
allowed her to be registered at the hotel as his wife; he permitted her
to sleep under the same roof with pure men and women--"

"I would like to ask Mrs. Warner," said a lady in a remote corner of the
room, "if she will vouch for the purity of the men?"

"Perhaps," said Mrs. Blanderocks, gravely, "it will be better if the
word men be stricken from the record. Do you object, Mrs. Warner?"

"It was a slip of the tongue," Sarah answered, "and I am grateful to the
member who called attention to it; though I will say that I think there
are some pure men."

"We are discussing Gorky now," said Mrs. Blanderocks with an indulgent
smile.

"True," answered Sarah, beaming back at the chairwoman; "and I was
saying that he had subjected the pure women of the hotel to the
unspeakable indignity of having to sleep under the same roof with the
woman he called his wife."

"I would like to ask," I interposed timidly, "if it is right for a
woman to sleep under the same roof with an impure man, or is it only an
impure woman who is injurious?"

"A woman has to sleep under some roof," came in the voice of the woman
in the corner.

"I think Mrs. Grant would show better taste if she did not press such a
question," said another voice. "Will Mrs. Warner be good enough to
describe the exact status--I think status is right--of the woman he
tried to pass as his wife?"

"She was his----" Sarah had a fit of coughing, "she was not his wife. I
do not care to be more explicit."

"Perhaps," I said, groping for light, "it would be better if I made my
motion read that s