r a good reason. One _ought_
to find out how things are, what people's conditions are."

It was what Barry too believed and practised, but he could only say
"It's the wrong way round. You've got to work from the centre to the
circumference.... And don't fall into the sentimental mistake of thinking
that all prostitution comes from sweated labour. A great deal does, of
course, but a great deal because it seems to some women an easy and
attractive way of earning a living.... Oh, hammer away at sweated
labour for all you're worth, of course, for that reason and every other;
but you won't stop prostitution till you stop the demand for it. That's
the poisonous root of the thing. So long as the demand goes on, you'll
get the supply, whatever economic conditions may be."

Gerda fell silent, pondering on the strange tastes of those who desired
for some reason the temporary company of these unfortunate females, so
unpleasing to the eye, to the ear, to the mind, to the smell; desired it
so much that they would pay money for it. _Why?_ Against that riddle the
non-comprehension of her sex beat itself, baffled. She might put it the
other way round, try to imagine herself desiring, paying for, the
temporary attentions of some dirty, common, vapid, and patchouli-scented
man--and still she got no nearer. For she never could desire it.... Well,
anyhow, there the thing was. Stop the demand? Stop that desire of men for
women? Stop the ready response of women to it? If that was the only way,
then there was indeed nothing for it but education--and was even
education any use for that?

"Is it love," she asked of Barry, "that the men feel who want these
women?"

Barry laughed shortly. "Love? Good Lord, no."

"What then, Barry?"

"I don't know that it can be explained, exactly.... It's a passing
taste, I suppose, a desire for the company of another sex from one's
own, just because it _is_ another sex, though it may have no other
attractions.... It's no use trying to analyse it, one doesn't get
anywhere. But it's not love."

"What's love, then? What's the difference?"

"Have I to define love, walking down Magpie Alley? You could do it as
well as I could. Love has the imagination in it, and the mind. I suppose
that's the difference. And, too, love wants to give. This is all
platitude. No one can ever say anything new about love, it's all been
said. Got your latch-key?"

Gerda let herself into the Red House and went up to bed and lay w