Page:Love's trilogy.djvu/231

 mother because she had broken the plate on the top of her father's dinner. Yes, you were in a sad scrape, Marie, you lovely child in the flowered——

Enough with flowers and sentimental nonsense. Have I not forgotten Marie?

ES, and I enjoyed my liberty.

Politeness bids me be considerate to women and prudence counsels me to be careful. Yet there is a question burning on the tip of my tongue, and out it must, whatever terrible consequences it may bring upon my sinful head.

What, may I ask—what is the truth about woman's virtue, that famous woman's virtue? I know—or I was taught—that there are few women who step aside from the narrow path of virtue; the only path which leads to heaven and matrimony. But I know also that men, however much they may be in want of money, need never be in want of love. God, and every one else, knows, that in this morganatic town there are to be found men who are masters of harems, which even the Grand Turk would not be ashamed to own. I have sought for an explanation in my historical reading. I had thought that perhaps the ladies' light cavalry might use the same stratagem as the soldiers of the famous hero, whose tiny regiment seemed to be a mighty army, because each soldier quickly moved from post to post. But I had to abandon this explanation, which sprang from true reverence for the virtue of women. For if such were the case, then the great