"I think so, most certainly!"
"But why?"
He hesitated.
"Well, the act of smoking in itself is not wrong--but the associations of the habit are unfit for womanhood. I know very well that it has become usual in England for ladies to smoke,--most unfortunately--but there are many habits and customs in this country as well as in others, which, because they are habitual, are not the less, but rather the more, pernicious. I confess to a strong prejudice against smoking women."
"But men smoke--why should not women smoke also?" persisted Maryllia.
Walden heard this plea with smiling patience.
"Men,--a very large majority of them too--habitually get drunk. Do you think it justifiable for women to get drunk by way of following the men's example?"
"Why no, of course not!"--she answered quickly--"But drunkenness is a vice---"
"So is smoking! And it is quite as unhealthy as all vices are. There have been more addle-pated statesmen and politicians in England since smoking became a daily necessity with, them than were ever known before. I don't believe in any human being who turns his brain into a chimney. And.--pardon me!--when YOU deliberately put that cigarette in your mouth---"
"Well!" and a mischievous dimple appeared on each soft cheek as she looked up--"What did you think of me? Now be perfectly frank!"
"I will!" he said, slowly, with an earnest gravity darkening in his eyes--"I should not be your true friend if I were otherwise! But if I tell you what I thought--and what I may say I know from long experience all honest Englishmen think when they see a woman smoking--you must exonerate me in your mind and understand that my thoughts were only momentary. I knew that your better, sweeter self would soon reassert its sway!"
Her head drooped a little--she was quite silent.
"I thought,"--he went on, "when I saw you actually smoking, that something strange and unnatural had happened to you! That you had become, in some pitiful way, a different woman to the one that walked with me, not so long ago, and showed me her old French damask roses blossoming in the border!"--he paused an instant, his voice faltering a little,--then he resumed, quietly and firmly--"and that you had, against all nature's best intentions for you, descended to the level of Lady Beaulyon---"
She interrupted him by a quick gesture--"Eva Beaulyon is my friend, Mr. Walden!"