She paused; there was no applause, but the breathless silence that reigned bore a higher tribute to the impression made than any spoken word or gesture.
"And when love came it brought with it a sense of duty to another, so that I no longer stood merely between Demeter and my love, I stood also between Demeter and Chairo"--a loud murmur of disapproval greeted these words. Lydia, however, went bravely on. "But I looked with suspicion upon an argument that so favored my own inclination, and believing duty to lie in resistance to inclination rather than in consent to it, I strangled my love, and with a pride in my own sacrifice that was false and bad I accepted the mission."
Again a murmur of disapproval filled the hall. This time Lydia acknowledged it by turning to the corner whence it came.
"Yes, I repeat it--with a pride in my own sacrifice that was false and bad--for it gave me strength to do a thing that was wrong! What is heroic in one is vanity in another. And I thank you for that expression of disapproval that reminds me to distinguish those to whom it is an ugly hypocrisy. There are women--and may their names be blessed--who, before their hearts have been kindled by love, bear within them a capacity for sacrifice and a longing for maternity which makes of them fitting subjects for the Demetrian mission; but when a woman has once harbored the young God Eros, when she has by implication, if not by express promise, sanctioned the harboring of him in another, then the strength that can disown her love and break that promise is drawn from a vanity that is foolish, or a conceit that is contemptible; and as I look back to the day when, after weeks of weakening struggle, I arose from the bed of torment strangely endowed with a strength that enabled me to make unmoved my final vows, I see that my strength came not from Demeter but from self-righteousness and self-conceit. And I make this bitter confession before you all that the fault may rest where it should, not upon you, priests and priestesses of Demeter"--and here she looked up at the gallery where they sat--"not upon him"--and she turned almost imperceptibly to Chairo--"but upon me."
Her voice sank as she said these words, and there broke from many of us a murmur of sympathy.