"I don't think people ever realize how deeply this question of physical
fidelity has sunk into us--as a race, I mean. If you knew it, Marcella,
it's absolutely the first thing of which people accuse those they love
when they get deranged in any way. A dear old man I knew--he was quite
eighty--a professor of psychology--when he was dying had the most
terrible grief because he seriously thought he'd got unlimited numbers
of girls into trouble. I suppose"--he went on slowly, wrestling with his
thoughts as he put them into words--"I suppose it's because we resent
infidelity so bitterly or else--why is it it touches us on the raw so
much? Why is it you were so sick with me for saying that insane thing
about King and Hop Lee?"
"I don't know, Louis," she said hopelessly. "It simply made me feel
sick."
"But--it _did_ touch you on the raw, you know, or you wouldn't have felt
sick. It wouldn't make you feel sick if I accused you of murder or
burglary--I believe it's simply because we might, all of us, very
conceivably break the seventh commandment; in fact, I don't believe
anybody goes through life, however sheltered and inhibited they may be,
without wanting to break it at least once! And that's why we're so mad
when anyone says we have."
She thought this out for a while.
"Well, I think that's perfectly disgusting, and that's all I can say
about it," she said finally.
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