sn't_
simple," she began hesitatingly. "It isn't just one's self. There's
society--the whole big terrible question. If it were just a simple,
individual matter,--why, the truth is I'd love to go and see Ruth. If it
were just a personal thing--why don't you know that I'd forget
everything--except that she's Ruth?" Her voice choked and she did not go
on, but was fumbling with the sewing in her lap.

He hitched his chair forward anxiously, concentrated on his great desire
to say it right, to win Edith for Ruth. Edith was a simple sort of
being--really, a loving being; if she could only detach herself from
what she pathetically called the whole terrible question--if he could
just make her see that the thing she wanted to do was the thing to do.
She looked up at him out of big grieving eyes, as if wanting to be
convinced, wanting the way opened for the loving thing she would like to
do.

"But, Edith," he began, as composedly and gently as he could, for she
was so much a child in her mentality it seemed she must be dealt with
gently and simply, "_is_ it so involved, after all? Isn't it, more than
anything else, just that simple, personal matter? Why not forget
everything but the personal part of it? Ruth is back--lonely--in
trouble. Things came between you and Ruth, but that was a long time ago
and since that she's met hard things. You're not a vindictive person;
you're a loving person. Then for heaven's sake why _wouldn't_ you go and
see her?"--it was impossible to keep the impatience out of that last.

"I know," she faltered, "but--society--"

"Society!" he jeered. "_Forget_ society, Edith, and be just a human
being! If _you_ can forget--forgive--what seemed to you the wrong Ruth
did _you_--if _your_ heart goes out to her--then what else is there to
it?" he demanded impatiently.

"But you see,"--he could feel her reaching out, as if thinking she must,
to the things that had been said to her, was conscious of her mother's
thinking pushing on hers as she fumbled, "but one _isn't_ free, Deane.
Society _has_ to protect itself. What might not happen--if it didn't?"

He tried to restrain what he wanted to say to that--keep cool, wise, and
say the things that would get Edith. He was sure that Edith wanted to be
had; her eyes asked him to overthrow those things that had been fastened
on her, to free her so that the simple, human approach was the only one
there was to it, justify her in believing one dared be as kind, as
natu