he should be deported from the country, since it is
her immorality that counts."

"And let those Republican Association women stand for more morality than
we do?" cried Mrs. Blanderocks. "No, you cannot make your motion too
strong."

"Oh, then," I said, with a sigh of relief, "I will move that Gorky and
all other men, immoral in the same way, shall be deported from the
country."

"Then who is to take care of us women?" demanded the voice in the
corner.

"Do be reasonable, Margaret," said Sarah Warner, "we can't drive all the
men out of the country, and don't want to, but we can fix a standard of
morals to astonish the world, and there could be no better way than by
making an example of this man Gorky. Don't you see that he is a
foreigner and can't very well know that our men are just as bad as he
is? Besides, isn't he a Socialist? We would have been willing to condone
his relations with that woman if only he'd hid them respectably as our
men do, but to come here with his free ideas---- Well, I'm willing to
let the Russians have all the freedom they want, and I would have given
my mite toward stirring up trouble over there, but we have all the
freedom we want over here, and a little more, too, if I know anything
about it."

"Very well," I replied, "I will withdraw the motion and make one to have
a committee appointed to investigate the matter and find out the whole
truth about it."

"What is there to find out?" demanded Sarah, aghast.

"Well, you know he insists that she is his wife. Maybe she is by
Russian law or custom."

"Perfectly absurd! His own wife and he separated because they couldn't
be happy together. Was ever anything more ridiculous?"

"As if happiness had anything to do with marriage!" said the voice from
the corner.

Everybody laughed and applauded as if something very funny had been
said.

"Well, anyhow," I insisted, for I can be obstinate when a thing isn't
clear to me, "if they both thought they were justified in calling
themselves man and wife, and if the people in Russia thought so, too,
why should we make any fuss about it?"

"Pardon me, Mrs. Grant," said Mrs. Blanderocks, suavely, "if I say that
your words are very silly. In the first place, the Russians are
barbarians, as we all know; and, in the next place, the law is the law,
and the law says that a man may not have two wives. A man who does is a
bigamist. A man who has a wife and yet lives with another woman is an
adulterer. Pa