d flicker for a
moment and then droop discreetly on her cool, fresh cheeks. But the
thought of her own frailty suggested an objection; and she asked:

"Don't you think that what you propose is difficult for the woman?"

"Oh, yes, difficult and, to many of us, impossible! Through a want of
pride, through love or pity, they resign themselves to an act of which
their reason does not approve and they wake up unhappy, sometimes for
ever.... It is difficult, for the woman who resists appears to the man a
sort of monster, abominable and detestable. Ah, there must be no
desertion before possession! Because we have given him our lips, we must
make him a present of our lives! Because we have consented to certain
pleasures, we must, so that he may enjoy a greater, sacrifice our future
to him!... In fact, he goes farther and says that woman, when she
indulges in those experiments, is following the dictates of a loathsome
and mean self-interest. Self-interest, when this conduct entails endless
dangers and bitterness! Self-interest, when it demands of us, before
all, an absolute contempt of a world to which nearly all are slaves,
when it exposes us to insults and suffering and increases the number of
our enemies and multiplies the obstacles in our path!... No, that woman
is not selfish who, in all good faith, plunges boldly into the adventure
at the risk of ruining herself, comes near to a man, thinking that she
has found what she is seeking and hoping that love may result. She feels
the promptings of her senses and does not resist her heart, but her
reason is awake! She will not give herself unless everything that she
learns confirms her expectations; she will give herself if she really
believes that the happiness of both depends upon it; and the combat that
is waged enables her to judge clearly of the quality of their love. She
is judge and combatant in one. She lets herself be carried along so that
she may have fuller knowledge; and it is not without pain, it is not
without love that, at the eleventh hour, she will, if need be, refuse
herself."

Rose here interrupted me:

"If she loves, if she suffers, why does she refuse herself?"

"There are a thousand degrees in love; and a woman of feeling always
suffers when she inflicts suffering."

I examined my mind for a moment and, as though it were uttering its
thoughts backwards, I continued, slowly:

"It is sometimes our duty to inflict suffering. The man's instinct is
always