barbarous Code, puts me entirely in his power without any possible
defense on my part; save actually killing me, he can do everything.
Can't you understand that? Can't you realize the horror of my situation?
Imagine, save actual murder, he can do anything to me, and he has the
strength--not only physical but legal--to obtain anything from me. And
I, I have not a single avenue of escape from a man whom I despise and
hate. And that is the law made by you men! He took me, married me,
deserted me. On my part, I have an absolutely moral right to leave him.
And yet, despite this righteous hatred, this overpowering disgust, this
loathing which creeps through me in the presence of the man who has
scorned me, deceived me, and who has fluttered, right under my eyes,
from girl to girl--this man, I say, has the right to demand from me a
shameful and infamous concession. I have no right to hide myself; I have
no right even to a key to my own door. Everything belongs to him--the
key, the door, and even the woman who hates him. It is monstrous! Can
you imagine such a horrible situation? That a woman should not be
mistress of herself, should not even have the sacred right of preserving
her person from a loathsome stain? And all this is the consequence of
the infamous law which you men have made!

JACQUES DE RANDOL [_appealingly_]

My darling! I fully understand what you must be suffering; but how can I
help it? No magistrate can protect you; no statute can preserve you.

MME. DE SALLUS

I know it. But when you have neither mother nor father to protect you,
when the law is against you, and when you shrink from complicity in
those degrading transactions to which many women yield themselves, there