But surely you must have known worldly women who married
rich men for their money. And surely you admit that that is
prostitution?"
She fell suddenly silent, and I saw what I had done, and, no doubt,
you will say I should have been ashamed of myself. But when one has
seen as much of misery and injustice as I have, one cannot be so
patient with the fine artificial delicacies and sentimentalities of
the idle rich. I went ahead to tell her some stories, showing her
what poverty actually meant to women.
Then, as she remained silent, I asked her how she had managed to
remain so ignorant. Surely she must have met with the word
"prostitution" in books; she must have heard allusions to the
"demi-monde."
"Of course," she said, "I used to see conspicuous-looking women at
the race-track in New Orleans; I've sat near them in restaurants,
I've known by my mother's looks and her agitation that they must be
bad women. But you see, I didn't know what it meant--I had nothing
but a vague feeling of something dreadful."
I smiled. "Then Lady Dee did not tell you everything about the
possibilities of her system of 'charm.'"
"No," said Sylvia. "Evidently she didn't!" She sat staring at me,
trying to get up the courage to go on with this plain speaking.
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