from me!'"

Her last sentence was a quotation from Jim, her imitation of his slang
so perfect Mary's cheeks flamed anew with anger.

"I'll teach him to use good English--never fear. In a month he'll forget
his slang and his red scarf."

"You mean that in a month you'll forget to use good English and his
style of dress will be yours. Oh, honey, can't you see that such a man
will only drag you down, down to his level? Can it be possible that
you--that you really love him?"

"I adore him and I'm proud of his love!"

"Now listen! You believe in an indissoluble marriage, don't you?"

"Yes----"

"It's the first article of your creed--that marriage is a holy
sacrament, that no power on earth or in hell can ever dissolve its
bonds? Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, my dear! They always
have--they always will, I suppose. This is peculiarly true of your type
of woman--the dainty, clinging girl of religious enthusiasm. You're
peculiarly susceptible to the physical power of a brutal lover. Your
soul glories in submission to this force. The more coarse and brutal its
attraction the more abject and joyful the surrender. Your religion can't
save you because your religion is purely emotional--it is only another
manifestation of your sex emotions."

"How can you be so sacrilegious!" the girl interrupted with a look of
horror.

"It may shock you, dear, but I'm telling you one of the simplest truths
of Nature. You'd as well know it now as later. The moment you wake to
realize that your emotions have been deceived and bankrupted, your faith
will collapse. At least keep, your grip on common-sense. Down in the
cowardly soul of every weak woman--perhaps of every woman--is the insane
desire to be dominated by a superior brute force. The woman of the lower
classes--the peasant of Russia, for example, whose sex impulses are of
all races the most violent--refuses with scorn the advances of the man
who will not strike her. The man who can't beat his wife is beneath
contempt--he is no man at all----"

Mary broke into a laugh.

"Really, Jane, you cease to be serious you're a joke. For Heaven's sake
use a little common-sense yourself. You can't be warning me that my
lover is marrying me in order to use his fists on me?"

"Perhaps not, dear,"--the artist smiled; "there might be greater depths
for one of your training and character. I'm just telling you the plain
truth about the haste with which you're rushing into this marriage.