"And if I do?" she asked weakly. "What if I do?"
"What if you do? Ain't lovin' a man answer enough for any woman?" cried the other. "Is the' anything else that holds folks together? Is the' anything else that makes men an' women happy? Does your bein' a man's wife mean happiness? Your promisin' to love him didn't make you love, did it? Because a preacher told you you was one didn't make it so, did it? Nobody can make you love him, not even yourself, 'cause you said it was duty that takes you back; that you don't love him. But you can't help lovin' Bruce Bayard!
"Oh, M's. Lytton, don't fool yourself about this duty! It's up to a man an' a woman to take love, to take happiness, when it comes. You can't set still an' watch it go by an' hope to have it come again; real happiness don't happen but once in most of our lives. I know. I've been down ... I've been happy, too ... I know!
"An' duty! Why, ma'am, duty like you think you ought to do, is waste! You're young, you're healthy, you're pretty. You'll waste your best years, you'll waste your health, you'll waste your looks on duty! You'll waste all your love; you'll get old an' bitter an'....
"If the's anything under heaven that's a crime, it's wasted love! Oh, M's. Lytton, I wasted my love when I was a kid, 'cause I didn't know better. I sold mine for money. For God's sake, don't sell yours for duty! If the's anything your God meant folks to do was to get what joy they can out of life. He wouldn't want you to think of bein' Ned Lytton's wife as ... as your duty. He ... God ain't that kind, M's. Lytton; he ain't!"
"Nora, Nora, don't say these things!" Ann pleaded. "You're wrong, you must be! Don't tempt me to ... these new ways ... don't...."
"New!" the girl broke in. "It ain't new, what I've been sayin'. It's as old as men an' women. It's as old as th' world. Th' things you try to make yourself believe are th' new ones. Love was old before folks first thought about duty. It seems new, because you ain't ever let yourself see straight ... you never had to until now."
"Nora, stop I You must stop! You can't be right ... you can't be!"
The waitress trembled against Ann and commenced to cry under the strain of her earnestness.
"But I know I'm right, M's. Lytton, I know I am! I know what you're doin'. Do--don't you see that you wouldn't be much different from what I was, if you went back to your husband, hatin' him an' lovin' another? Happiness comes just once; it's a sin to let it go by!"