"You might go on and be very happy. And as for the--for his wife, it won't
do her any harm. It's only--if there are children."
"I know. I've thought of that. But I'm so crazy for children!"
"Exactly. So you should be. But when they come, and you cannot give them
a name--don't you see? I'm not preaching morality. God forbid that I--But
no happiness is built on a foundation of wrong. It's been tried before,
Tillie, and it doesn't pan out."
He was conscious of a feeling of failure when he left her at last. She had
acquiesced in what he said, knew he was right, and even promised to talk to
him again before making a decision one way or the other. But against his
abstractions of conduct and morality there was pleading in Tillie the
hungry mother-heart; law and creed and early training were fighting against
the strongest instinct of the race. It was a losing battle.