In some inexplicable way Nature struck a terrible balance--revenged herself upon a people who had no children, or who brought into the world children not created by the divinity of love, unyearned for, and therefore somehow doomed to carry on the blunders and burdens of life.
Carley realized how right and true it might be for her to throw herself away upon an inferior man, even a fool or a knave, if she loved him with that great and natural love of woman; likewise it dawned upon her how false and wrong and sinful it would be to marry the greatest or the richest or the noblest man unless she had that supreme love to give him, and knew it was reciprocated.
"What am I going to do with my life ?" she asked, bitterly and aghast.
"I have been--I am a waster.

I've lived for nothing but pleasurable sensation.

I'm utterly useless.

I do absolutely no good on earth." Thus she saw how Harrington's words rang true--how they had precipitated a crisis for which her unconscious brooding had long made preparation.
"Why not give up ideals and be like the rest of my kind ?" she soliloquized.
That was one of the things which seemed wrong with modern life.

She thrust the thought from her with passionate scorn.