anything worth
while without occasionally treading on some one's toes. It has always
been that way and if you're honest with yourself, you may as well
recognize the fact and accept it philosophically.

"In most cases the harm that you do is much less than you imagine. That
usually takes care of itself, somehow."

If people bore her, she doesn't believe in pretending that they interest
her. She will not invite them to her house, or accept their invitations.

If she has agreed to go somewhere, where she expects to amuse herself
and then, at the last moment, no longer feels in the mood for it, she
calls it off. Or if in the meantime, something else turns up that she
would prefer to do, she does not hesitate to switch to the thing she
prefers.

If people don't like that, it is their affair. She has no intention of
cramping her freedom, denying her desires, on their account. What she
does means more to her than it does to anybody else. There is no good
reason for her to pretend to be any different from what she is.

Moreover, in this particular case, there can be very little doubt, among
those who know her, that she practices what she preaches. This, too, is
something which occurs more frequently in the new generation than it did
in the past. There is no great trouble in accommodating practice to
theory--or rather the theory accommodates itself very readily to the
kind of conduct which persons of this kind are ready to practice.

For instance, the lady in question wanted to visit Chinatown in one of
the large cities and arranged with a professional guide to be taken
there at night, alone with a girl friend. Among other things, they saw a
Chinaman smoking opium and this gave rise to a desire on her part to
experience the sensation for herself. The guide was prevailed upon, for
a consideration, to procure her an outfit and a supply of opium; and
that very night in her room she took a try at an opium dream. Why not?

At another time, at a cabaret party, she was introduced to a somewhat
notorious young man of the Bohemian world. He was obviously dissolute,
but talented and interesting. She danced with him, gave him
encouragement, invited him to her home and was not afraid to be seen
going about with him frequently on terms of intimacy. Among other
things, he was addicted to the cocaine habit--he sniffed the powder from
the back of his hand--and in due time he talked to her about it. He
presented her with a bottle of the