deas on which it was
founded? How often does a man dig about the basement of his house to
examine its foundation? The foundation is there, of course--the house
rests on it--but one lives abovestairs and not in the cellar. It
was she, indeed, who in the beginning had insisted on reviewing the
situation now and then, on recapitulating the reasons which justified
her course, on proclaiming, from time to time, her adherence to the
religion of personal independence; but she had long ceased to feel
the need of any such ideal standards, and had accepted her marriage as
frankly and naturally as though it had been based on the primitive needs
of the heart, and needed no special sanction to explain or justify it.

"Of course I still believe in our ideas!" she exclaimed.

"Then I repeat that I don't understand. It was a part of your theory
that the greatest possible publicity should be given to our view of
marriage. Have you changed your mind in that respect?"

She hesitated. "It depends on circumstances--on the public one is
addressing. The set of people that the Van Siderens get about them don't
care for the truth or falseness of a doctrine. They are attracted simply
by its novelty."

"And yet it was in just such a set of people that you and I met, and
learned the truth from each other."

"That was different."

"In what way?"

"I was not a young girl, to begin with. It is perfectly unfitting that
young girls should be present at--at such times--should hear such things
discussed--"

"I thought you considered it one of the deepest social wrongs that such
things never ARE discussed before young girls; but that is beside
the point, for I don't remember seeing any young girl in my audience
to-day--"

"Except Una Van Sideren!"

He turned slightly and pushed back the lamp at his elbow.

"Oh, Miss Van Sideren--naturally--"

"Why naturally?"

"The daughter of the house--would you have had her sent out with her
governess?"

"If I had a daughter I should not allow such things to go on in my
house!"

Westall, stroking his mustache, leaned back with a faint smile. "I fancy
Miss Van Sideren is quite capable of taking care of herself."

"No girl knows how to take care of herself--till it's too late."

"And yet you would deliberately deny her the surest means of
self-defence?"

"What do you call the surest means of self-defence?"

"Some preliminary knowledge of human nature in its relation to the
marriage tie."

She