Page:In the days of the comet.djvu/339



"But," said Nettie, "you don't struggle. That has been altered because men have minds."

"You choose," I said.

"If I don't choose to choose?"

"You have chosen."

She gave a little impatient "Oh! Why are women always the slaves of sex? Is this great age of Reason and Light that has come to alter nothing of that? And men too! I think it is all--stupid! I do not believe this is the right solution of the thing, or anything but the bad habits of the time that was. . . . Instinct! You don't let your instincts rule you in a lot of other things. Here I am between you. Here is Edward. I--love him because he is gay and pleasant, and because--because I like him! Here is Willie--a part of me--my first secret, my oldest friend! Why must I not have both? Am I not a mind that you must think of me as nothing but a woman? Imagine me always as a thing to struggle for?" She paused; then she made her distressful proposal to me. "Let us three keep together," she said. "Let us not part. To part is hate, Willie. Why should we not anyhow keep friends? Meet and talk?"

"Talk?" I said. "About this sort of thing?"

I looked across at Verrall and met his eyes, and we studies one another. It was the clean, straight scrutiny of honest antagonism. "No," I decided. "Between us, nothing of that sort can be."