“How cynical it has made you—I mean, you didn’t talk this way before you went away.”

“Before I went away,” said Helen, “we never mentioned the subject, your son not yet being born, but I dare say I should have talked the same way then. I hope so. It isn’t cynical—it’s merely honest. You know as well as I that it’s quite proper to marry someone you respect but don’t love. Society never will ostracise you for it. And you know it’s getting into the realm of romance when you really lose your heart to your mate, even though he or she isn’t beautiful. That’s more than respectable—it’s admirable. Something like that, I understand, you dream of for your boy.”

“That doesn’t quite cover my point of view,” said Charitas.

“No, it doesn’t quite cover mine, either,” said Helen. “I ought to add that those two formulas, love without beauty and marriage without love, though they are respectable and conventional, are also very dangerous. Rare as beauty is, you can’t always prevent it from coming your way, and if you see it you must love it.”

“I don’t know that you must,” said Charitas; “some of us have previous obligations.”

“If you’ve never given yourself to beauty,” said Helen, “there are no previous obligations.”

“Then you wouldn’t try to stop a boy from falling in love with the first beautiful girl he sees?”

“I’d try to prevent him from falling in love with any other,” said Helen, “and when the beautiful girl arrives, it’s his duty to love her. He probably will, anyway, whether or not he has contracted obligations with the respectable and plain, and I’d rather have him free and sincere. The way you are going at it, Charitas, you will make your boy ashamed to love beauty, and he’ll pursue it in some treacherous, cowardly fashion. Your ambition to keep him respectable may prevent him from being moral.”

“Do you talk this way to Hermione?” said Charitas.

“I’ve had little opportunity to talk to her on any subject,” said Helen, “but I should say the same thing to her. I hope she will love the most wonderful man she knows, and I’d like her to fall in love at sight, but in any case she probably will love as fate wills, and there’s no use interfering. The ones that take advice are heart-free.”

“Would you mind Adraste’s waiting at the other end of the garden?” said Charitas. “There are one or two things I’d like to whisper to you.”

“Adraste will wait at the end of the garden,” said Helen. “But now she’s gone, I must say, Charitas, I see no point in whispering. If it’s unmentionable, don’t let’s say it.”

“Helen, it’s all very well for you to be frank, but perhaps you do harm to others. You oughtn’t to say such things before the girl—and with reference to my son; you’ll put ideas into her head.”

“Dear Charitas, what possible ideas of ours are new to the young, who listen to nature? I mentioned your son only because you did, and I wished him a happy fate. You, it seems to me, gave him a bad character; you expressed distrust of him, and before the girl. She hasn’t lost her heart to your description. You really ought to send him over to our house some day soon, to prove he’s more of a man than you’ve tried to make him. I’m curious to see the boy.”