Here was poor old Terry fondly imagining
that at last he was free to stray in "a rosebud garden of girls"--and behold!
the rosebuds were all with keen appraising eye, studying us.
They were interested, profoundly interested, but it was not
the kind of interest we were looking for.
To get an idea of their attitude you have to hold in mind their
extremely high sense of solidarity. They were not each choosing
a lover; they hadn't the faintest idea of love--sex-love, that is.
These girls--to each of whom motherhood was a lodestar, and
that motherhood exalted above a mere personal function, looked
forward to as the highest social service, as the sacrament of a
lifetime--were now confronted with an opportunity to make the
great step of changing their whole status, of reverting to their
earlier bi-sexual order of nature.
Beside this underlying consideration there was the limitless
interest and curiosity in our civilization, purely impersonal, and
held by an order of mind beside which we were like--schoolboys.
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