She saw him wince at the abrupt discourtesy of this. She apologized:

"I don't mean to be rude, but--well, it wouldn't interest you."

"Oh yes, it would. Don't tell me if you don't want to, but--"

"But--"

"Oh, nothing!"

"You mean you'll think that if I don't tell you it's because I'm ashamed to."

"Oh no, not at all."

"Oh yes, at all. Well, what if I were?"

"I can't imagine your having done anything to be ashamed of."

"O Lord! Am I as stupid as that comes to?"

"No! But I mean, you couldn't have done anything to be really ashamed of."

"That's what I mean. I've done numberless things I'd give my right arm not to have done."

"I mean really wicked things."

"Such as--"

"Oh--well, I mean being bad."

"Woman-bad or man-bad?"

"Bad for a woman."

"So what's bad for one is not bad for another."

"Well, not exactly, but there is a difference."

"If I told you that I had been very, very wicked in those mysterious years, would it seem important to you?"

"Of course! Horribly! It couldn't help it, if a man cared much for a woman."

"And if a woman cared a lot for a man, ought it to make a difference what he had done before he met her?"

"Well, of course--but that's different."

"Why?"

"Oh, because it is."

"Men say 'Because!' too, I see."

"It's just shorthand with us. It means you know it so well there's no need of explaining."

"Oh! Well, if you--I say, _if_ you were very much in love with me--"

"Which I--"

"Don't be odiously polite. I'm arguing, not fishing. If you were deeply in love with me, would it make a good deal of difference to you if several years ago I had been--oh, loose?"

"It would break my heart."

Marie Louise liked him the better for this, but she held to her argument.

"All right. Now, still supposing that we loved each other, ought I to inquire of you if the man of my possible choice had been perfectly--well, spotless, all that time? Ought I expect that he was saving himself up for me, feeling himself engaged to me, you might say, long before he met me, and keeping perfectly true to his future fiancee--ought I to expect that?"

He flushed a little as he mumbled:

"Hardly!"

She laughed a trifle bitterly:

"So we're there already?"

"Where?"

"At the double standard. What's crime for the goose is pastime for the gander."

He did not intend to give up man's ancient prerogative.

"Well, it's better to have almost any standard than none, isn't it?"

"I wonder."

"The single standard is better than the sixteen to one--silver for men and gold for women."

"Perhaps! But you men seem to believe in a sixteen to none. Mind you, I'm not saying I've been bad."

"I knew you couldn't have been."

"Oh yes, I could have been--I'm not saying I wasn't. I'm not saying anything at all. I'm saying that it's n.o.body's business but my own."

"Even your future husband has no right to know?"

"None whatever. He has the least right of all, and he'd better not try to find out."

"You women are changing things!"

"We have to, if we're going to live among men. When you're in Rome--"