She
could not discuss it, she could not even attend with hearing ears to
Mrs. Marshall-Smith's very reasonable presentation of her case; the
long tradition as to the justifiability of such ignorance on a bride's
part; the impossibility that any woman should ever know all of any
man's character before marriage; the strong presumption that marriage
with a woman he adored would cure habits contracted only through
the inevitable aimlessness of too much wealth; the fact that, once
married, a woman like Judith would accept, and for the most part deal
competently with, facts which would frighten her in her raw girlish
state of ignorance and crudeness. Sylvia did not even hear these
arguments and many more like them, dignified with the sanction of
generations of women trying their best to deal with life. She had
never thought of the question before. It was the sort of thing from
which she had always averted her moral eyes with extreme distaste; but
now that it was forced on her, her reaction to it was instantaneous.
From the depths of her there rose up fresh in its original vigor,
never having been dulled by a single enforced compliance with a
convention running counter to a principle, the most irresistible
instinct against concealment. She did not argue; she could not. She
could only say with a breathless certainty against which there was no
holding out: "Judith must know! Judith must know!"
Mrs.
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