'How dare he speak of her like
that!'
Mr. Paramor's voice broke in on his meditations.
"Still cooling your heels? Why did you play the deuce with us in there?"
"I hate a sham," said Gregory. "This marriage of my ward's is a sham.
She had better live honestly with the man she really loves!"
"So you said just now," returned Mr. Paramor. "Would you apply that to
everyone?"
"I would."
"Well," said Mr. Paramor with a laugh, "there is nothing like an
idealist for-making hay! You once told me, if I remember, that marriage
was sacred to you!"
"Those are my own private feelings, Paramor. But here the mischief's
done already. It is a sham, a hateful sham, and it ought to come to an
end!"
"That's all very well," replied Mr. Paramor, "but when you come to put
it into practice in that wholesale way it leads to goodness knows what.
It means reconstructing marriage on a basis entirely different from the
present. It's marriage on the basis of the heart, and not on the basis
of property. Are you prepared to go to that length?"
"I am."
"You're as much of an extremist one way as Barter is the other. It's
you extremists who do all the harm. There's a golden mean, my friend.
I agree that something ought to be done. But what you don't see is that
laws must suit those they are intended to govern.
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