"That women have
something to sell, or give away, and the question is just how much each
one can get for it! That's what makes the most insignificant married
woman feel superior to the happiest and richest old maid. She says to
herself, 'I've made my market. Somebody chose me!' That's what
motherhood and homemaking rest on: the whole world is just one great big
question of sex, spinning away in space! And even after a woman is
married, she still plays with sex; she likes to feel that men admire
her, doesn't she? At dinners there must be a man for every woman; at
dances no two girls must dance together! And here, the minute a new girl
comes to join my clubs, I try to read her face. Is she pure, or has she
already thrown away--"
"Julia, _dear_!" said Jim, amazed and troubled, but she silenced him with
a quick gesture. Her cheeks were burning now, and her words came fast.
"Those poor little girls at St. Anne's," she said feverishly, "they've
thrown their lives away because this thing that is in the air all about
them came too close. They were too young legally to be trusted as Nature
has trusted them for years! They heard people talk of it, and laugh
about it--it didn't _seem_ very dangerous--"
"Julia!" Jim said again, pleadingly.
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