g, was suffocating for lack of air, and yet that it
would die if she brought it to light. She could find no words at all
to ask for help, agonizing in a shy reticence impossible for an adult
to conceive. Finally, beginning at random, very hurriedly, looking
away, she brought out, faltering, "Mother, _is_ it true that all men
are--that when a girl marries she must expect to--aren't there _any_
men who--" She stopped, burying her burning face in her muff.

Her words, her tone, the quaver of desperate sincerity in her accent,
brought her mother up short. She stopped abruptly and faced the girl.
"Sylvia, look at me!" she said in a commanding voice which rang loud
in the frosty silences about them. Sylvia started and looked into her
mother's face. It was moved so darkly and so deeply from its usual
serene composure that she would have recoiled in fear, had she not
been seized upon and held motionless by the other's compelling eyes.

"Sylvia," said her mother, in a strong, clear voice, acutely
contrasted to Sylvia's muffled tones, "Sylvia, it's a lie that men
are nothing but sensual! There's nothing in marriage that a good girl
honestly in love with a good man need fear."

"But--but--" began Sylvia, startled out of her shyness.

Her mother cut her short. "Anything that's felt by decent men in love
is felt just as truly, though maybe not always so strongly, by women
in love. And if a woman doesn't feel that answer in her heart to what
he feels--why, he's no mate for her. Anything's better for her than
going on. And, Sylvia, you mustn't get the wrong idea. Sensual feeling
isn't bad in itself. It's in the world because we have bodies as well
as minds--it's like the root of a plant. But it oughtn't to be a very
big part of the plant. And it must be the root of the woman's feeling
as well as the man's, or everything's all wrong."

"But how can you _tell_!" burst out Sylvia.

"You can tell by the way you feel, if you don't lie to yourself, or
let things like money or social position count. If an honest
girl shrinks from a man instinctively, there's something not
right--sensuality is too big a part of what the man feels for her--and
look here, Sylvia, that's not always the man's fault. Women don't
realize as they ought how base it is to try to attract men by their
bodies," she made her position clear with relentless precision, "when
they wear very low-necked dresses, for instance--" At this chance
thrust, a wave of scarlet bur