"Women ought to be as free as we are--"

It would presently be his task to take the bandage
from this young woman's eyes, and bid her look forth
on the world. But how many generations of the women
who had gone to her making had descended bandaged
to the family vault? He shivered a little, remembering
some of the new ideas in his scientific books, and the
much-cited instance of the Kentucky cave-fish, which
had ceased to develop eyes because they had no use for
them. What if, when he had bidden May Welland to
open hers, they could only look out blankly at blankness?

"We might be much better off. We might be
altogether together--we might travel."

Her face lit up. "That would be lovely," she owned:
she would love to travel. But her mother would not
understand their wanting to do things so differently.

"As if the mere `differently' didn't account for it!"
the wooer insisted.

"Newland! You're so original!" she exulted.

His heart sank, for he saw that he was saying all the
things that young men in the same situation were
expected to say, and that she was making the answers
that instinct and tradition taught her to make--even to
the point of calling him original.