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Undergraduate Topics in Computer
Science

Series Editor
Ian Mackie

Advisory Board
Samson Abramsky, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Chris Hankin, Imperial College London, London, UK
Mike Hinchey, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland
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Andrew Pitts, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK
Hanne Riis Nielson, Technical University of Denmark, Kongens
Lyngby, Denmark
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Iain Stewart, University of Durham, Durham, UK
Undergraduate Topics in Computer Science (UTiCS) delivers high-
quality instructional content for undergraduates studying in all areas of
computing and information science. From core foundational and
theoretical material to final-year topics and applications, UTiCS books
take a fresh, concise, and modern approach and are ideal for self-study
or for a one- or two-semester course. The texts are all authored by
established experts in their fields, reviewed by an international
advisory board, and contain numerous examples and problems. Many
include fully worked solutions.
More information about this series at http://​www.​springer.​com/​
series/​7592
Joseph Migga Kizza

Ethical and Secure Computing

A Concise Module
2nd ed. 2019
Joseph Migga Kizza
College of Engineering and Computer Science, University of Tennessee,
Chattanooga, TN, USA

ISSN 1863-7310 e-ISSN 2197-1781

Undergraduate Topics in Computer Science
ISBN 978-3-030-03936-3 e-ISBN 978-3-030-03937-0
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03937-0

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018961714

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

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electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar
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The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks,

service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the
absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the
relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general
use.

The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the
advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate
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made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
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Preface
Following new technological developments is like climbing a mountain
shrouded in early morning mist always expecting to crest at every
forward step but never cresting. Yet we don’t give up. We have gotten
involved, to almost a point of enslavement, yet we keep on moving
always expecting more and better as dire warnings of overuse fly just
pass us. The overwhelming growth of technology and its ability to give
us unlimited powers making us able to do things unthinkable just a few
years past is equally creating as much excitement as it creates security
scares and bewilderment. Tremendous technological advances have
been registered across the board from telecommunication to
computing with jaw-dropping developments. Along the way, these
developments are creating an unprecedented convergence of
communications and computing platform technologies that are
reaching into all remote corners of the world, bringing the poor and
less affluent on a par with the rest of the developed world. These new
technological developments have created new communities and
ecosystems that are themselves evolving, in flux and difficult to secure
and with questionable, if not evolving ethical systems that will take
time to learn, if it remains constant at all. Because of these rapid and
unpredictable changes, I found my previous edition, Ethics in
Computing: A Concise Module , in need of a review and an update.
Without losing my focus and flavor of the previous edition, I have
selectively updated the content of the chapters, adding new ones and
clarifying the message that a time is coming, if not already here, when
we, as individuals and as nations, will become totally dependent on
computing technology. Evidence of this is embodied in the rapid
convergence of telecommunication, broadcasting, computing and
mobile devices, the miniaturization of these devices, the ever-growing
ubiquity of computing, the speed of computation, and ease of use.
These technology characteristics have been a big pulling force sucking
in millions of new users every day, sometimes even those who are
unwilling. Other appealing features of technology are ever-growing
pervasiveness and applications both good and bad. Whether small or
big, devices based on the growing ability of the changing technology
have become the centerpiece of an individual’s social and economic
activities, the main access point for all information and the
empowerment of the device owners. Individuals aside, computing
technology has also become the engine that drives the nations’ strategic
and security infrastructures that control power grids, gas and oil
storage facilities, transportation, and all forms of national
communication, including emergency services. These developments
have elevated the cyberspace ecosystem as the most crucial economic
and security environment of nations requiring an ethical and secure
computing environment .
As we look for ethical and secure computing strategies, the
technological race is picking up speed with new technologies that make
our efforts and existing protocols on which these strategies based
obsolete in shorter and shorter periods. All these illustrate the speed at
which the computing environment is changing and demonstrate a need
for continuous review of our defensive strategies and more importantly
a need for a strong ethical and secure framework in our computer,
information, and engineering science education. This has been and will
continue to be the focus of all my writings on this topic, and it is and
remains so in this second edition.
Chapter Overview
This second edition is divided into twelve chapters as follows:
Chapter 1 — Morality and the Law defines and examines the
personal and public morality, identifying assumptions and values of the
law, looking at both conventional and natural laws, and the intertwining
of morality and the law. It, together with Chap. 3 , gives the reader the
philosophical framework needed for the remainder of the book.
Chapter 2 — Ethics and Ethical Analysis sets up the philosophical
framework and analysis tools for the book discussing moral theories
and problems in ethical relativism. Based on these and in light of the
rapid advances in technology, the chapter discusses the moral and
ethical premises and their corresponding values in the changing
technology arena.
Chapter 3 — Ethics and the Professions examines the changing
nature of the professions and how they cope with the impact of
technology on their fields. An ethical framework to help in decision
making is developed professional and ethical responsibilities based on
community values and the law are also discussed. And social issues
including harassment and discrimination are thoroughly covered.
Chapter 4 — Anonymity, Security, and Privacy and Civil Liberties
surveys the traditional ethical issues of privacy, security, anonymity and
analyzes how these issues are affected by computer technology.
Information gathering, databasing, and civil liberties are also discussed.
Chapter 5 — Intellectual Property Rights and Computer
Technology discusses the foundations of intellectual property rights
and how computer technology has influenced and continues to
influence and change the traditional issues of property rights, in
particular intellectual property rights.
Chapter 6 — Social Context of Computing considers the three
main social issues in computing, namely the digital divide, workplace
issues like employee monitoring, and health risks, and how these issues
are changing with the changing computer technology.
Chapter 7 — Software Issues: Risks and Liabilities revisits
property rights, responsibility, and accountability with a focus on
computer software. The risks and liabilities associated with software
and risk assessment are also discussed.
 Chapter 8 — Computer Crimes surveys the history and examples
of computer crimes, their types, costs on society, and strategies of
detection and prevention.
Chapter 9 — Cyberbullying discusses the growing threat and the
effects of repeated deliberate harm or harassment of other people by
using electronic technology that may include devices and equipment
such as cell phones, computers, and tablets as well as communication
tools including social media sites, text messages, chat, and Web sites.
Chapter 10 — Evolving Realities: Ethical and Secure Computing
in the New Technological Spaces discusses the new frontiers of
ethical and secure computing in the new technological spaces that
include intelligent and virtualization technologies, virtual spaces and
realities, and their effects on the traditional ethical and social fabric of
society.
Chapter 11 — Ethical, Privacy, and Security Issues in Online
Social Network Ecosystem discusses the new realities of global
computer social network ecosystems, global linguistic, cultural, moral,
and ethical dynamics, and their impact on our traditional and cherished
moral and ethical systems.
Chapter 12 — Evolving Cyberspace: The Marriage of 5G and the
Internet of Things (IoT) Technologies (New) discusses the new
frontiers of ethical and secure computing in the new and developing
Internet–user interface whose protocols, policies, and standards are yet
to be defined, discussed, and accepted by the scientific and user
communities. We will explore how this new interface has created an
ethical and security quagmire and how this is affecting our traditional
ethical and social systems.

Audience
The book satisfies the following ACM/IEEE Curricula (i) CS-Computer
Science Curriculum 2015 and (ii) CS-Information Technology
Curriculum 2017 ( https://​www.​acm.​org/​binaries/​content/​assets/​
education/​curricula-recommendations/​it2017.​pdf ). In summary, all
these curricula emphasize the student’s understanding of the basic
cultural, social, legal, and ethical issues inherent in the discipline of
computing. To achieve this, the student must:
 understand where the discipline has been, where it is, and where it is
heading.
understand the individual roles in this process, as well as appreciate
the philosophical questions, technical problems, and aesthetic values
that play an important part in the development of the discipline.
develop the ability to ask serious questions about the social impact of
computing and to evaluate the proposed answers to those questions.
be aware of the basic legal rights of software and hardware vendors
and users, and they also need to appreciate the ethical values that are
the basis for those rights.
Students in related disciplines like computer information and
information management systems, and library sciences will also find
this book informative.
The book is also good for computer science practitioners who must
practice the principles embedded in the curricula based on
understanding:
the responsibility that they bear and the possible consequences of
failure.
their own limitations as well as the limitations of their tools.
The book is also good for anyone interested in knowing how ethical
and social issues like privacy, civil liberties, security, anonymity, and
workplace issues like harassment and discrimination are affecting the
new computerized environment.
In addition, anybody interested in reading about computer
networking, mobile computing, social networking, information security,
and privacy will also find the book very helpful.

Acknowledgements
I appreciate all the help I received from colleagues who offered ideas,
criticism, sometimes harsh, and suggestions from anonymous
reviewers over the years. Special thanks to my dear wife, Dr.
Immaculate Kizza, who offered a considerable amount of help in
proofreading, constructive ideas, and wonderful support.
Joseph Migga Kizza
Chattanooga, TN, USA
2018
Contents
1 Morality and the Law
1.​1 Introduction
1.​2 Morality
1.​2.​1 Moral Theories
1.​2.​2 Moral Decision Making
1.​2.​3 Moral Codes
1.​2.​4 Moral Standards
1.​2.​5 Guilt and Conscience
1.​2.​6 Morality and Religion
1.​3 Law
1.​3.​1 The Natural Law
1.​3.​2 Conventional Law
1.​3.​3 The Purpose of Law
1.​3.​4 The Penal Code
1.​4 Morality and the Law
1.​5 Morality, Etiquettes, and Manners
References
2 Ethics and Ethical Analysis
2.​1 Traditional Definition
2.​2 Ethical Theories
2.​2.​1 Consequentialism​
2.​2.​2 Deontology
2.​2.​3 Human Nature
2.​2.​4 Relativism
2.​2.​5 Hedonism
 2.​2.​6 Emotivism
2.​3 Functional Definition of Ethics
2.​4 Ethical Reasoning and Decision Making
2.​4.​1 A Framework for Ethical Decision Making
2.​4.​2 Making and Evaluating Ethical Arguments
2.​5 Codes of Ethics
2.​5.​1 2018 ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct:​
Draft 1
2.​5.​2 Objectives of Codes of Ethics
2.​6 Reflections on Computer Ethics
2.​6.​1 New Wine in an Old Bottle
2.​7 Technology and Values
References
3 Ethics and the Professions
3.​1 Introduction
3.​2 Evolution of Professions
3.​2.​1 Origins of Professions
3.​2.​2 Requirements of a Professional
3.​2.​3 Pillars of Professionalism
3.​3 The Making of an Ethical Professional:​Education and
Licensing
3.​3.​1 Formal Education
3.​3.​2 Licensing Authorities
3.​3.​3 Professional Codes of Conduct
3.​4 Professional Decision Making and Ethics
3.​4.​1 Professional Dilemmas in Decision Making
3.​4.​2 Guilt and Making Ethical Decisions
 3.​5 Professionalism and Ethical Responsibilities​
3.​5.​1 Whistle-Blowing
3.​5.​2 Harassment and Discrimination
3.​5.​3 Ethical and Moral Implications
References
4 Anonymity, Security, Privacy, and Civil Liberties
4.​1 Introduction
4.​2 Anonymity
4.​2.​1 Anonymity and the Internet
4.​2.​2 Advantages and Disadvantages of Anonymity
4.​2.​3 Legal View of Anonymity
4.​3 Security
4.​3.​1 Physical Security
4.​3.​2 Physical Access Controls
4.​3.​3 Information Security Controls
4.​3.​4 Operational Security
4.​4 Privacy
4.​4.​1 Definition
4.​4.​2 Types of Privacy
4.​4.​3 Value of Privacy
4.​4.​4 Privacy Implications of the Database System
4.​4.​5 Privacy Violations and Legal Implications
4.​4.​6 Privacy Protection and Civil Liberties
4.​5 Ethical and Legal Framework for Information
4.​5.​1 Ethics and Privacy
4.​5.​2 Ethical and Legal Basis for Privacy Protection
 References
5 Intellectual Property Rights and Computer Technology
5.​1 Definitions
5.​2 Computer Products and Services
5.​3 Foundations of Intellectual Property
5.​3.​1 Copyrights
5.​3.​2 Patents
5.​3.​3 Trade Secrets
5.​3.​4 Trademarks
5.​3.​5 Personal Identity
5.​4 Ownership
5.​4.​1 The Politics of Ownership
5.​4.​2 The Psychology of Ownership
5.​5 Intellectual Property Crimes
5.​5.​1 Infringement
5.​5.​2 The First-Sale Doctrine
5.​5.​3 The Fair Use Doctrine
5.​6 Protection of Ownership Rights
5.​6.​1 Domain of Protection
5.​6.​2 Source and Types of Protection
5.​6.​3 Duration of Protection
5.​6.​4 Strategies of Protection
5.​7 Protecting Computer Software Under the IP
5.​7.​1 Software Piracy
5.​7.​2 Protection of Software Under Copyright Laws
5.​7.​3 Protection of Software Under Patent Laws
 5.​7.​4 Protection of Software Under Trademarks
5.​7.​5 Protection of Software Under Trade Secrets
5.​8 Transnational Issues and Intellectual Property
References
6 Social Context of Computing
6.​1 Introduction
6.​2 The Digital Divide
6.​2.​1 Access
6.​2.​2 Technology
6.​2.​3 Humanware (Human Capacity)
6.​2.​4 Infrastructure
6.​2.​5 Enabling Environments
6.​3 Obstacles to Overcoming the Digital Divide
6.​4 ICT in the Workplace
6.​4.​1 The Electronic Office
6.​4.​2 Office on Wheels and Wings
6.​4.​3 The Virtual Workplace
6.​4.​4 The Quiet Revolution:​The Growth of Telecommuting
6.​4.​5 Employee Social and Ethical Issues
6.​5 Employee Monitoring
6.​5.​1 Workplace Privacy and Surveillance
6.​5.​2 Electronic Monitoring
6.​6 Employee Health and Productivity in the Workplace
6.​6.​1 Ergonomics
References
7 Software Issues:​Risks and Liabilities
 7.​1 Definitions
7.​1.​1 Standards
7.​1.​2 Reliability
7.​1.​3 Security
7.​1.​4 Safety
7.​1.​5 Quality
7.​1.​6 Quality of Service
7.​2 Causes of Software Failures
7.​2.​1 Human Factors
7.​2.​2 Nature of Software:​Complexity
7.​3 Risk
7.​3.​1 Risk Assessment and Management
7.​3.​2 Risks and Hazards in Workplace Systems
7.​3.​3 Historic Examples of Software Risks
7.​4 Consumer Protection
7.​4.​1 Buyers’ Rights
7.​4.​2 Classification of Computer Software
7.​4.​3 The Contract Option
7.​4.​4 The Tort Option
7.​5 Improving Software Quality
7.​5.​1 Techniques for Improving Software Quality
7.​6 Producer Protection
References
8 Computer Crimes
8.​1 Introduction
8.​2 History of Computer Crimes
 8.​3 Types of Computer Systems Attacks
8.​3.​1 Penetration
8.​3.​2 Denial of Service
8.​4 Motives of Computer Crimes
8.​5 Costs and Social Consequences
8.​5.​1 Lack of Cost Estimate Model For Cyberspace Attacks
8.​5.​2 Social and Ethical Consequences
8.​6 Computer Crime Prevention Strategies
8.​6.​1 Protecting Your Computer
8.​6.​2 The Computer Criminal
8.​6.​3 The Innocent Victim
References
9 Cyberbullying
9.​1 Definition
9.​1.​1 Legal Definition
9.​1.​2 Cyberstalking
9.​1.​3 Cyberharassment
9.​2 Types of Cyberbullying
9.​2.​1 Harassment
9.​2.​2 Flaming
9.​2.​3 Exclusion
9.​2.​4 Outing
9.​2.​5 Masquerading
9.​3 Areas of Society Most Affected by Cyberbullying
9.​3.​1 Schools
9.​3.​2 Cyberbullying in the Workplace
 9.​4 Legislation Against Cyberbullying
9.​4.​1 Federal Laws
9.​4.​2 State Laws
9.​4.​3 International Laws
9.​5 Effects of Cyberbullying
9.​6 Dealing with Cyberbullying
9.​6.​1 Awareness
9.​6.​2 Legislation
9.​6.​3 Community Support
9.​7 Resources
References
10 Evolving Realities:​Ethical and Secure Computing in the New
Technological Spaces
10.​1 Introduction
10.​2 Artificial Intelligence
10.​2.​1 Advances in Artificial Intelligence
10.​2.​2 Artificial Intelligence and Ethics
10.​3 Virtualization
10.​3.​1 Simulated Computing Environments
10.​3.​2 Virtual Reality
10.​3.​3 Different Types of Virtual Reality
10.​3.​4 Virtualization and Ethics
10.​4 Cyberspace and the Concept of Telepresence
10.​4.​1 Securing Cyberspace
10.​4.​2 Social Issues in Cyberspace
10.​4.​3 Privacy in Cyberspace
 References
11 Ethical, Privacy, and Security Issues in the Online Social
Network Ecosystems
11.​1 Introduction
11.​2 Introduction to Computer Networks
11.​2.​1 Computer Network Models
11.​2.​2 Computer Network Types
11.​3 Social Networks (SNs)
11.​4 Online Social Networks (OSNs)
11.​4.​1 Types of Online Social Networks
11.​4.​2 Online Social Networking Services
11.​4.​3 The Growth of Online Social Networks
11.​5 Ethical and Privacy Issues in Online Social Networks
11.​5.​1 Privacy Issues in OSNs
11.​5.​2 Strengthening Privacy in OSNs
11.​5.​3 Ethical Issues in Online Social Networks
11.​6 Security and Crimes in Online Social Networks
11.​6.​1 Beware of Ways to Perpetrate Crimes in Online Social
Networks
11.​6.​2 Defense Against Crimes in Online Social Networks
11.​7 Proven Security Protocols and Best Practices in Online
Social Networks
11.​7.​1 Authentication
11.​7.​2 Access Control
11.​7.​3 Legislation
11.​7.​4 Self-regulation
11.​7.​5 Detection
 11.​7.​6 Recovery
References
12 Evolving Cyberspace:​The Marriage of 5G and the Internet of
Things (IoT) Technologies
12.​1 Introduction
12.​2 Fifth-Generation (5G) Technology (G5)
12.​2.​1 Overview of 5G Wireless Communications
12.​2.​2 5G Network Architecture and Protocol Stack
Perspectives
12.​2.​3 Technical Challenges of 5G Technology
12.​3 The Internet of Things (IoT)
12.​3.​1 Overview and Growth of Internet of Things
12.​3.​2 Architecture and Networking of IoT
12.​3.​3 Challenges of Using TCP/​IP Architecture Over the IoT
12.​3.​4 IoT Governance, Privacy, and Security Challenges
12.​3.​5 Governance and Privacy Concerns
12.​3.​6 Security Challenges
12.​3.​7 Autonomy
12.​3.​8 Computational Constraints
12.​3.​9 Discovery
12.​3.​10 Trust Relationships
12.​4 Ethical, Social, and Legal Impacts of 5G and IoT
12.​4.​1 Environment
12.​4.​2 E-Waste
12.​4.​3 Conflict Minerals
12.​4.​4 Healthy Issues Emanating from 5G and IoT
Technologies
 12.​4.​5 Ethics
12.​5 Exercises
12.​6 Advanced Exercises
References
Index
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019
Joseph Migga Kizza, Ethical and Secure Computing, Undergraduate Topics in
Computer Science
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03937-0_1

1. Morality and the Law

Joseph Migga Kizza1

(1) College of Engineering and Computer Science, University of

Tennessee, Chattanooga, TN, USA

Joseph Migga Kizza

Email: [email protected]

Learning Objectives
After reading this chapter, the reader should be able to
1. Learn to make sound moral reasoning.

2. Learn about moral values and ideals in a person’s life.

3. Learn about the relationship between morality and religion.

4. Distinguish between morality and etiquette, law, and the

professional code of conduct .

5. Learn what it means to have moral principles, the nature of

conscience , and the relationship between morality and self-
interest.
Scenario 1: With Stem Cell Research We Can Grow Just About
Anything Human!
The parliament of the Republic of Kazini passed legislation, and the
president signed into law, authorizing its citizens and scientists
working on Kazini territory to carry out stem cell research to the best
extent possible only limited by the physical resources. Scientists in
Kazini have spearheaded such research and have made major
breakthroughs in recent years.
Stem cells abound in bodies, but as human bodies age, the number
of these cells and their potential and functions start to diminish as
well. Embryonic stem cells that are found in the early stages of the
body’s development have the ability to divide indefinitely in culture
and can therefore, at least in the laboratory, develop into virtually any
cell type in the body.
The scientists in Kazini and their counterparts from around the
world believe in the great benefits of stem cell research, especially
embryonic stem cells . Many newspapers and scientific journals, not
only in Kazini but also from other countries, have written stories of
limitless benefits, the most immediate being the replacement of
insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, damaged muscle cells, and
dead nerve cells due to strokes, spinal injury, and degenerative
diseases that include Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s . It may also lead to
the development and replacement of liver cells destroyed by hepatitis
and other liver diseases.
Dr. Don Rogan, a brilliant young scientist, is the Director of Kazini
Clinical Research Laboratory, the leading research nerve center in
Kazini. Rogan is convinced that the legislature’s action is morally
wrong. However, his laboratory has been chosen for funding and his
dedicated scientists and staff are excited by the legislature’s actions.
They had lobbied hard for the passage of the bill. Now they see a ray of
hope for millions of people not only on Kazini but also around the
world. Rogan is facing a personal dilemma .
Discussion Questions
1. What options does Rogan have?
 2. If you were Dr. Rogan, what would you do?

3. Is Dr. Rogan bound by the legislation?

1.1 Introduction
Whether you believe in a supreme being or you are an atheist , you
acknowledge the existence of human life because you are alive. You are
alive because someone nurtured you and protected you from all
adversities. Whoever did so followed a set of rules of conduct that kept
both of you alive. Such shared rules, written or not, play a vital role in
all human existence.
Human beings do not live randomly. We follow a script —a life
script. In that script are hundreds of subscripts we follow both for
survival (e.g., eating and sleeping) and for specific tasks. For example,
when you meet a stranger, you follow a subscript different from the one
you follow when you meet a long-lost friend. If you are hungry, the
subscript you follow is different from the one you use to overcome
anger. Within each subscript are variations we introduce to suit the
situation. For example, when meeting an old friend, some people cry
and others jump up and down, but both responses remain within the
same subscript of meeting an old friend. The most important purpose
of all these subscripts is human life, our own as well as others.
Believing in human life implies that we also believe life has a
purpose. And because no one wants to live a life of pain, every human
being believes in happiness as a purpose for life. To be happy, we need
those conditions that create happiness, namely life, liberty, and
property. Each condition is embodied in each of the three basic human
survival subscripts : morality , ethics, and law. In this chapter, we
discuss morality and law, and in Chap. 2, we discuss ethics.

1.2 Morality
Morality is a set of rules for right conduct, a system used to modify and
regulate our behavior. It is a quality system in human acts by which we
judge them right or wrong, good or bad. This system creates moral
persons who possess virtues such as love for others, compassion, and a
desire for justice; thus, it builds character traits in people. In particular,
morality is a survival script we follow in our day-to-day living.
According to Wikipedia [1], morality has three different definitions:
A descriptive definition according to which morality means a set of
rules (code) of conduct that governs human behavior in matters of
right and wrong. An example of the descriptive usage could be
“common conceptions of morality have changed significantly over
time.”
A normative and universal definition is more prescriptive and refers
to an ideal code of conduct that would be observed by all rational
people under specified conditions. An example is a moral value
judgment such as “murder is immoral.”
A definition of morality that is synonymous with ethics. Ethics is the
systematic philosophical study of the moral domain. We define and
discuss ethics in the following chapter.
In each one of these definitions, morality concerns itself with a set
of shared rules, principles, and duties, independent from religion,
applicable to all in a group or society, and having no reference to the
will or power of any one individual whatever his or her status in that
group or society. Although moral values are generally shared values in a
society, the degree of sharing these values varies greatly. We may agree
more on values such as truth, justice, and loyalty than on others. To
paraphrase Shakespeare, life is but a stage on which there is continuous
acting from the subscript of morality . Every time we interact in a
society or group, we act the moral subscript that was developed by that
society or group for its members over time.
Because morality is territorial and culturally based, so long as we
live in a society we are bound to live within that society’s guidelines.
The actions of individuals in a society only have moral values if taken
within the context of this very society and the culture of the individual.
A number of factors influence the context of morality, including time
and place.

1.2.1 Moral Theories

If morality is a set of shared values among people in a specific society,
why do we have to worry about justifying those values to people who
are not members of that society? In other words, why do we need moral
theories? What do moral theories have to do with the moral subscripts
? If you write a script for a play, you want both the audience and the
cast to understand the message of the play. If you can find a way to help
them get that message and believe it, then you have put credibility in
the script . This is where moral theories come in. According to
MacDonald, moral theories “seek to introduce a degree of rationality
and rigor into our moral deliberations” [1]. They give our deliberations
plausibility and help us to better understand those values and the
contradictions therein. Because many philosophers and others use the
words moral and ethical synonymously, we delay the discussion of
moral theories until we discuss ethics.

1.2.2 Moral Decision Making

Every human action results from a decision process. Because every
human action follows a subscript , the decision-making process follows
a subscript as well. A decision is morally good if the result from it is
good. A good moral decision embodies nearly all moral theories and
usually takes into consideration the following points:
1. All the facts surrounding the situation, taking into account the
interests of all parties involved, and

2. The moral principles involved and how they will affect all others
involved.

Combining points 1 and 2 implies there must be reasoning and

impartiality in any moral decision. Moral and ethical theorists have
outlined four ways of ensuring reason and impartiality in moral
decision making , as follows:
1. The use of the rational intuition of moral principles, which helps us
perceive moral principles such as the notion of justice and deciding
what is good.
2. The use of reason to determine the best way to achieve the highest
moral good.

3. The ability to distinguish between primary and secondary moral

principles. Primary moral principles are more general; secondary
principles are more specific and are generally deduced from the
primary ones.

4. The rational calculation of the consequences of our actions. The

calculation should tell us whether the action is good or bad
depending on the consequences [2].

Nearly all moral theories embody one or more of these themes.

1.2.3 Moral Codes

The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines moral codes as rules or
norms within a group for what is proper behavior for the members of
that group [2]. The norm itself is a rule, standard, or measure for us to
compare something else whose qualities we doubt. Moral codes are
often complex definitions of right and wrong that are based upon well-
defined group’s value systems.
In a way, moral codes are shared behavioral patterns of a group.
These patterns have been with us since the beginnings of human
civilization and have evolved mainly for the survival of the group or
society. Societies and cultures survive and thrive because of the moral
code they are observing. History has shown failures of societies and
cultures such as the once mighty civilizations and great empires of the
Babylonians, the Romans , and the Byzantines , probably because their
code failed to cope with the changing times.
Although different cultures have different codes, and we have
established that morality is relative to time, there have been some
timeless and culture-free (moral) codes that have been nearly
universally observed. Such codes include this partial list created by the
astronomer Carl Sagan [3]:
1. The Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto
you.”
 Versions of the Golden Rule in Different Religions 1
BUDDHIST: Hurt not others in ways that you would find hurtful.
CHRISTIAN: All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to
you, do ye even so to them.
CONFUCIAN: Do not unto others what you would not have them do
unto you.
HINDU: This is the sum of duty; do naught unto others which if
done to thee would cause thee pain.
ISLAMIC: No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother
that which he desires for himself.
JAIN: In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard
all creatures as we regard our own self.
JEWISH: Whatever thou hatest thyself, that do not to another.
SIKH: As thou deemest thyself, so deem others.
TAOIST: Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, and your
neighbor’s loss as your own loss.
ZOROASTRIAN: That nature alone is good which refrains from
doing unto another whatsoever is not good for itself.
2. The Silver Rule: “Do not do unto others what you would not have
them do unto you.” Great men like Mahatma Gandhi followed this
rule almost to the letter.

3. The Bronze Rule: “Repay kindness with kindness.” This rule is

widely observed because of its many varying interpretations. Some
people call it the “carrot-and-stick” rule. However you interpret it, it
seems to support the vendetta syndrome.

4. The Iron Rule: “Do unto others as you like, before they do it unto
you.” This rule, if followed by a leader, can create dictatorships. It
seems to say, “He who is on the floor cannot make rules” or “Do it if
you can get away with it.”

5. The Tin Rule: “Pay homage to those above you and intimidate those
below you.” This is what many call the bully rule.

6. The Nepotism Rule: “Give precedence in all things to close relatives,

and do as you like to others.” This rule legitimizes corruption.
 Because most of these rules seem vindictive, corruptible, dictatorial,
and abusive, Sagan proposes the following as what seems to be a good
culture-free and timeless universal set of moral codes :
1. Be friendly at first meeting.

2. Do not envy.

3. Be generous; forgive your enemy if he or she forgives you.

4. Be neither a tyrant nor a patsy.

5. Retaliate proportionately to an intentional injury (within the

constraints of the rule of the law).

6. Make your behavior fair (although not perfectly) clear and

consistent.

Other timeless, culture-free, but less widely practiced and less

universally accepted codes are those observed by small groups of
people with similar interests (e.g., religious and professional groups).
Examples of such moral codes include the Native American Ten
Commandments , the Jewish and Christian Ten Commandments , and
the Unix Users Group Ten Commandments , as outlined here.

1.2.3.1 Native American Ten Commandments [4]

1. Treat the Earth and all that dwell thereon with respect.

2. Remain close to the Great Spirit.

3. Show great respect for your fellow beings.

4. Work together for the benefit of all Mankind.

5. Give assistance and kindness wherever needed.

6. Do what you know to be right.

7. Look after the well-being of mind and body.

8. Dedicate a share of your efforts to the greater good.

9. Be truthful and honest at all times.

10. Take full responsibility for your actions.

1.2.3.2 The Christian Ten Commandments [5]

1. I , the Lord, am your God. You shall not have any other gods
besides Me.

2. You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain.

3. Remember to keep holy the Sabbath day.

4. Honor your father and your mother.

5. You shall not kill.

6. You shall not commit adultery.

7. You shall not steal.

8. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

9. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.

10. You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.
1.2.3.3 Unix Users Group Ten Commandments (the
Manual, Ex. 20, Verses 1–21) [6]
And lo did Unix2 speak these words upon the reboot:
1. Thou shalt use no other operating system than Unix .

2. Thou shalt not make unto thee a false operating system. Thou
shalt not program them for I am the Unix and a jealous O/S.

3. Thou shalt not take the mark of trade of Unix in vain, or thou shalt
be sued.

4. Remember thy password, and keep it secret.

5. Honour thy parent shell, for if it should die, thou shalt not live long
(unless thou hast dissociated thyself).

6. Thou shalt not kill (l)-9 any process, for surely they shalt
becometh zombies or defunct.

7. Thou shalt not commit hacking, else thou shalt eat quiche.

8. Thou shalt not use other users’ data, for thou shalt be referred to
the Data Protection Act, 1984, and sued (again).

9. Thou shalt not create Trojan horses, worms, viruses , or other foul
beasts of false programming.

10. Thou shalt not rm -rf thy neighbor’s home, nor covet his disk
space allocation, nor his workstation account.

The purpose of moral codes in a society is to exert control over

actions of members of the group resulting from emotions. Observance
of moral codes in most societies is almost involuntary because
members grow up with these codes, so they tend to follow them
without questioning. In some societies, observance is enforced through
superstition, and in others, it is enforced through folklore and customs.
In Chap. 3, we show that professions need to have codes to which their
members adhere for them to be ethical and moral in their day-to-day
professional activities.

1.2.4 Moral Standards

A moral standard is a moral norm, a standard to which we compare
human actions to determine their goodness or badness. This standard
guides and enforces policy. Morality is a system that, in addition to
setting standards of virtuous conduct for people, also consists of
mechanisms to self-regulate through enforcement of the moral code
and self-judge through guilt , which is an internal discomfort resulting
from disappointment in self-mediated conscience .

1.2.5 Guilt and Conscience

Moral guilt is a result of self-judging and punishing oneself for not
living up to the moral standards set for oneself or for the group. If
individuals judge that they have not done “good” according to moral
standards , they can activate the guilt response, which usually makes
them feel bad, hide their actions from both self and others, and find a
fitting punishment for themselves, sometimes a very severe
punishment. This internal judgment system is brought about because
human beings have no sure way of telling whether an action is good or
bad based independently on their own “standards .” Individual
standards are usually judged based on group standards . So individuals
judge themselves based on group standards , and self-judgment comes
into play whenever one’s actions fall short of the group’s standards .
The problem with guilt is that it can be cumulative. If individuals
commit acts repetitively that they judge to be below moral standards ,
they tend to become more and more withdrawn. This isolation often
leads individuals to become more comfortable with the guilt . As they
become comfortable living with the guilt, their previous actions, which
were previously judged below standards , begin to look not so bad after
all. Individuals become more and more complacent about the guilt and
begin to look at the whole moral system as amoral.
Guilt can be eased by encouraging people to focus on the intentions
behind the actions. Sometimes the intentions may be good, but the
resulting action is bad. In such a case, the individual should not feel so
guilty about the action. Besides looking for intentions of actions, one
should also have the will and ability to forgive oneself. Self-forgiveness
limits the cumulative nature of guilt and hence helps an individual to
keep within the group.
Our moral code , and many times the law, lays out the general
principles that we ought not do this or that because it is wrong to do it.
The law also tells us not to do this or that because it is illegal to do so.
However, neither system specifically tells us whether a particular
human action just committed is an immoral or illegal act. The link must
be done by the individual—a self-realization. It is this individual inner
judgment to tell us that the act is right or wrong, lawful or unlawful,
that we call our conscience . Additionally, conscience is the capacity and
ability to judge our actions ourselves based on what we set as our
moral standards . The word conscience comes from the Latin word
conscientia, which means knowing with. It is an “inner voice” telling us
what to do or not do. This kind of self-judgment is based on the
responsibility and control we have over our actions. Conscience is
motivated by good feelings within us such as pride, compassion,
empathy, love, and personal identification. Conscience evolves as
individuals grow. The childhood conscience is far different from the
adult conscience because our perception of evil evolves with age. The
benefits of conscience are that the actions done with good conscience ,
even if they end up being bad, do not make one guilty of the actions.
Fr. Fagothey [11] writes that conscience applies to three things:
1. The intellect as a faculty for forming judgments about right and
wrong individual acts

2. The process of reasoning that the intellect goes through to reach

such judgment

3. The judgment itself, which is the conclusion of this reasoning

process.

We have seen in this section that morality does not belong to any
individual, nor does it belong to any society or group of people. Thus, it
cannot be localized. However, those parts of the moral code that can be
localized become law.

1.2.6 Morality and Religion

Religion, in contrast to morality , draws much from the divine. Most
religious belief systems include or are built around the idea of divine
will and divine judgment. However, many of these systems usually
correspond to a moral code of conduct , and because of this, many
religions claim that religion and morality are intimately connected.

Issues for Discussion

In Roman Catholicism, morality derives from God because God
created man and nature and that the ultimate sanction for
immorality is the loss of a relationship with God. How does your
religion relate to the morality of your society?
How do both Atheism and Pantheism relate to morality?
What values are essential for a person that would allow him/her
to starve rather than to steal?

1.3 Law
According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, a law is a binding custom or
practice of a community; a rule of conduct or action prescribed or
formally recognized as binding or enforced by a controlling authority;
the whole body of such customs, practices, or rules [7]. Black states that
law is an art we can create and model, and contemporary critics define
law as an instrument of exercising power [8].
Bryan Bourn combines both these definitions of law and describes it
as both an art and an instrument for exercising power [8]. He bases his
definition on the fact that law on many occasions strives forcefully to
create something desirable without following a precise and exact
process or formula that can be reproduced (thus the art component).
Fr. Fagothey defines laws as a rule and measure of actions directing
them to proper ends. It obliges us to make our conduct conform to the
norm of morality . He goes on to divide law into two types:
1. Physical law, which directs nonfree irrational beings to uniform
action toward their ends by inner necessity of their nature, that is,
imposing physical necessity

2. Moral law or natural law , which directs free rational beings toward
their ends by imposing obligations on the free will—thus imposing
moral necessity.

However one defines law, whether as a rule, an injunction, an art, or

an exercise of power; there is always a component of force that must be
obeyed with the purpose of creating something desirable for the
community that the law is intended to serve. This goal is achieved
through the reign of equal justice for all in the community. We tend to
obey two types of laws: the natural and the conventional .

1.3.1 The Natural Law

Natural law is an unwritten but universal law. It is a theory that an
eternal, absolute moral law can be discovered by reason and is
derivable from reason. It is distinct from the law of nature, applies to all
rational creatures, exists independently of human preferences and
inclinations, and is applied cross-culturally. According to James Donald
[9], natural law “follows from the nature of man and the world, and
consists of rights like the right to self-defense and the right to
individual property. So naturally it is ‘higher’ than any other
conventional law enacted by a human authority like a government
because no conventional law has jurisdiction over natural law.” Natural
law has been known since the time of Plato and Aristotle (ca. 500 bc)
but has its clear formulation and definition in the writings of Thomas
Aquinas, a thirteenth-century philosopher and theologian [1].
Natural law is the anchor of our rights of self-preservation, liberty,
and property. Before organized human societies, humans existed
because of natural law . It secured the environment in those human
settlements for those activities that sustain life, beginning with hunting
and progressing through business and commerce . Even today, there are
human societies that exist without conventional law. Present-day
examples include those states with collapsed governments because of
political strife. People in these states, even in the absence of a central
governing authority and a functioning legal system, are still living their
lives, many of them happily. Although they may not enjoy all the
pleasures of life, they have a way of protecting life, liberty, and personal
property. Ironically, there are even states that supposedly live with
organized authorities resembling government yet have no rule of
conventional law; they are surviving on natural law .
The existence of natural law has been debated for centuries. In fact,
there are many who do not believe in natural law and are always
advocating the supremacy of conventional law. Thomas Hobbes, the
famous English philosopher, argued that the nature of man is not such
that one could deduce natural law from it, that the natural law so
deduced does not place any significant limits on the powers of civil law,
and that social order is a creation of state power [1].

1.3.2 Conventional Law

Conventional law is a system created by and for human beings, usually
in public deliberations such as a council of elders or representatives in
national legislatures. It derives from that part of the moral code that is
enforceable and varies from society to society and from culture to
culture. Although history and experience have shown that natural law
has been used as the basis for some conventional laws, and there are
examples such as the English Magna Carta and the U.S. Constitution and
Bill of Rights, judgment is not based on natural law [9, 10]. In day-to-
day judgment, decisions are based on facts and the matching of facts to
words, not on natural law.
Conventional law takes two forms: (1) declarative, which simply
restates what the natural law declares, such as forbidding murder, theft,
and (2) determinative, which fixes ways of acting in accordance with
natural law, such as in contracts, taxes, traffic, and other types of laws.
Conventional law has a long history of evolution from natural law. Some
of the outstanding examples follow [11]:
1. Law of nature. Originating from the Roman jus gentium. The
Romans developed jus gentium from a mosaic of nations that
formed the Roman Empire. Jus gentium was a common factor of all
laws of all nations in the empire. When the empire collapsed, the
 resulting states developed this law of nations into the modern
European legal system.
2. English common law. A result of centuries of unwritten precedents
and decisions of common courts, statutes, and acts of the English
Parliament.

The English common law gave birth to the modern English and
American law.

1.3.3 The Purpose of Law

Both conventional and natural laws exist to protect the life, liberty, and
property of the group covered by these laws. According to Fr. Fagothey
[11], laws are needed for the following reasons:
1. The ignorant need instruction and control by the wise.

2. Earthly penalties are required for the safety of society.

3. Concerted action demands teamwork and leadership.

4. Society must meet changed conditions harmoniously.

1.3.4 The Penal Code

Laws are always useless unless there is a right to punish and an
enforcement mechanism is in place. The penal code is a system of set
rules prescribing punishment for unlawful acts. In a way, the penal code
is that enforcement mechanism. The punishment system consists of
three functions [11]:
1. Retributive—by paying back the victim for the crime committed,
reestablishing the equal balance of justice, and reasserting the
authority

2. Corrective—by trying to improve the offender; in other words,

rehabilitating the offender back into society
3. Deterrent—by trying to prevent similar actions in the future by the
offender, and indeed the offender community, that is, forewarning
the offender community by the state, which is the lawmaker.

The enforcement is different in criminal and civil cases. In criminal

cases, the punishment may lead to denial of certain individual rights for
a period of time. The period of incarceration depends on the nature and
types of violations. In civil cases, punishments are usually damage
awards to those whose rights were infringed upon.

1.4 Morality and the Law

Conventional laws of a society are determined by the moral beliefs of
that society. Many people disagree with this statement. In fact, there are
two views. The proponents of natural law believe that conventional
laws are valid if they meet certain standards of morality, whereas
opponents of natural law, usually referred to as legal positivists, do not
believe in the validity of conventional laws based on morality [11].
Whatever your camp, both morality and the legal system serve the
purpose of keeping society stable and secure. They are both used in
making judgments about people’s actions, and such judgments are
justifiable by reason. Although morality and the law seem to have a
common purpose and the means to achieve the stated purpose, the
implementation of these means to achieve the purpose is different. The
following are some of the major differences:
1. The process of making codes and laws: Laws are enacted by
authorities such as councils of elders and assemblies of the people’s
representatives . Moral codes , however, are developed not by one
central authority but by all members of a society, over a period of
time, from experiences and reason.

2. Enforcement: Laws are enforced by the authority that enacted them

or representatives of that authority, such as judges and courts, and
security forces such as the police. However, morality is self-
enforced, not enforceable by courts, nor is it enforceable by any
authorized security force. There is no moral or ethical court to
 judge moral wrongdoers. For example, no one can impose penalties
for not obeying the Ten Commandments .
3. Nature of punishments: Unlawful acts are punishable by penalties
that depend on the type, nature, and civility of the action. If it is
criminal, it may result in incarceration, and if it is civil, it may result
in payment of damages. However, if the act is judged to be immoral,
the judgment is usually based on the individual’s perception of that
society’s morality, and the penalties imposed are also individually
based.

4. Conflict resolution: Laws are used to resolve interpersonal conflicts

in a society. However, morality is mostly used to harmonize
intrapersonal conflicts.

5. Types of judgment: Morality passes judgment on a person’s

intentions and character based on what is in your heart. Although
courts do not always ignore a person’s intention or state of mind,
the law cannot normally govern what is in the person’s heart.

Because of these differences, it is correct to say that in any society

not all laws are based on the morality of that society. Because morality
is a higher and superior system, there is only a small area where the
two overlap, and there are many times when the two conflict. Let us
look at examples. In February 1997 came the startling news of the
results of a bold genetic engineering experiment. The Roslin Institute in
Edinburgh, Scotland, reported that a team of researchers led by
embryologist Dr. Ian Wilmut had successfully cloned two identical
sheep. Wilmut’s team beat the odds predicted by researchers around
the world by taking a mammary cell from an adult sheep, preparing its
DNA to be accepted by the egg from another sheep, moving the egg’s
own DNA, and replacing it with the DNA from the adult sheep by fusing
the egg with the adult cell. The fused egg began to grow normally to
form an embryo, which scientists then implanted into another sheep,
and that sheep later gave birth to a cloned lamb they named Dolly.
Although the experiment was done purely for animal reproduction,
many scientists saw the potential for drug manufacturing and replacing
human parts. Animals could be used to produce pharmacologically
useful proteins for manufacturing drugs, literally making animals serve
as drug factories. Animal clones could also be used to “manufacture”
animal parts with human characteristics that could later be used in
human transplants.
The cloning experiment created substantial legal, ethical, and moral
problems. In many countries, it is not illegal to clone human beings , but
because of the potential for abuse, such countries are already
scrambling to enact laws that will make such an act illegal. Moral and
ethical issues also need to be addressed. For example, what will prevent
an unethical scientist from cloning a person he or she loves, or a person
on whom to experiment, and what will stop governments strapped by
lack of labor from cloning thousands of their best living human beings
who have exhibited extraordinary intelligence or skills?
In the rush to create ourselves, we may end up creating monsters
that could destroy us, because although the physical characteristics of
clones will be similar, behavior characteristics will be as unpredictable
as ours! Wilmut acknowledges the potential for misuse of this scientific
breakthrough [10]. It is a daunting moral dilemma for which the society
must find solutions.
Imagine seeing someone drowning and calling desperately for help
while you simply look on and enjoy the show. Your action is not only
repugnant, but immoral, and depending on whether the laws of
deliberate indifference apply to you, your action may even be illegal. In
another example, authorities in some societies fight teen violence by
imposing a night curfew on the teens. In such societies, it is illegal for
teens to venture out after curfew hours, although it is not immoral.
Another good illustrative example is free speech. Consider a situation
that occurred on a college campus in which a list of male students,
posted by a group of female students led by a faculty member, warned
that those male students were potential rapists. Such an act is
repugnant, yet it is legal to post such a list. Consider also the trade in
pornographic images both in print and on the Internet . These images
not only degrade the men, women, and children depicted, they also
contribute to other related crimes such as rape. In most cases, however,
trading in such images is legal.
These examples illustrate that even though both morality and
conventional law are integral parts of human life, they do not cover the
same domains. There are hundreds of similar cases where the legal
system, although protecting civil liberties , unintentionally obscures
morality.

Issues for Discussion

Name a few of what you consider to be unjust laws and sometimes
unjust legal systems that imprison innocent people.

1.5 Morality, Etiquettes, and Manners

Etiquette refers to a code of behavior, a set of norms of correct conduct
expected by a society, group, or social class. It is a generally expected
social behavior. These rules of the code or the set of norms are usually
unwritten, but aspects of these may reflect an underlying moral code .
Manners are unenforced standards of conduct or cultural norms
that show that an individual is “refined” and “cultured” with a society
or group. These norms codify or set a standard for human behavior.
However, in contrast to laws that also codify human behavior, manners,
just like morality , have no formal system for punishing transgressions
other than social disapproval.

Issues for Discussion

Lapses in etiquettes, the consequences of which may vary depending
on the audience, occur when least expected. Discuss these
consequences and how etiquettes are related to the moral code of
the group.
Discuss your own situations that involved such lapses. What does
society expect from the offending individual?

Exercises
1. How do morality and law relate to each other?

2. What is moral relativism?

3. What is the connection between law and art?

4. Why is reasoning so important in morality?

5. Is morality evolutionary or revolutionary? Discuss.

6. Happiness is human. Discuss.

7. What is the role of education in moral behavior?

8. Show how and why the following rules are culture-free:

(i) The Golden Rule

(ii) The Bronze Rule

(iii) The Iron Rule.

9. If you were charged with creating a “new” human society, what

moral code would you design and why?

10. We tend to live a moral script every day. Reflect on what is in your
script .

11. Morality is time sensitive. Discuss.

12. Study the Native American Ten Commandments and the Christian
Ten Commandments . Without comparing them, discuss the
common thread between them.

13. How does guilt help to shape our moral journey?

14. Discuss the interplay between guilt and conscience .

15. What roles does the conscience fill in decision making?

16. Natural law is universal. Discuss.

17. What is the law of nature? Discuss why it is different from natural
law.

18. What role does each one of the following have in our lives?
(i) Conventional law

(ii) Natural law

(iii) Law of nature.

19. Can there be a common morality? Why or why not?

20. Is common morality possible in cyberspace?

21. Discuss the possibility of common morality in the age of

globalization .

22. What is the effect of globalization on morality?

References
1. MacDonnel C. Moral decision making: an analysis. http://​www.​ethics.​ubc.​c a/​-
chrismac/​moral.​decision.​html
2.
Moral Relativism. Internet encyclopedia of philosophy. http://​www.​utm.​edu/​
research/​iep/​ni/​m-ration.​html
3.
Sagan C (1993) A new way to think about rules to live by. Parade Magazine, p 12
4.
The Native American Ten Commandments. http://​www.​indians.​org/​welker/​
tencomm.​htm
5.
The Christian Ten Commandments. http://​biblescripture.​net/​C ommandments.​
html
6.
The Unix Ten Commandments. http://​www.​pipex.​net/​people/​j asonh/​c ommand.​
html
7.
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary. http://​www.​merriam-webster.​c om/​dictionary/​
law
8.
Bourn B. Law as art (with apologies to Charles Black). http://​www.​usinternet.​
com/​bdbourn/​black.​html
9.
Donald J. Natural law and natural rights. https://​j im.​c om/​rights.​html
10.
Kalota G (1997) Scientists report first cloning ever for adult mammal. New York
Times sec. 1, p 1
11.
Fagothey FA (1959) Right and reason, 2nd edn. Tan Books and Publishers,
Rockford, IL

Further Reading
12. Conclusion: words, not laws, should be the weapons. The Ethical Spectacle,
November 1995. http://​www.​spectacle.​org/​1995/​c oncl.​html
13.
Johnson DG (1994) Computer ethics, 2nd edn. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs
14.
Kizza JM (ed) (1996) Social and ethical effects of the computer revolution.
McFarland, Jefferson
15.
Macer DRJ (1994) Bioethics for the people by the people. Eubios Ethics Institute,
Christchurch, pp 74–91. http://​bio.​tsukuba.​ac.​j p/​-macer/​BFPSE.​html
16.
Objective morality. http://​www.​percep.​demon.​c o.​uk/​morality.​html18

Footnotes
1 https://​ellemay.​wordpress.​c om/​2009/​02/​09/​the-golden-rule-versions-from-
many-religions-philosophies/​f

2 Let Unix be a trademark of AT&T.

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and would not permit her to visit them. Her rapidly awakening
intellect was seeking for partnership in her still fluid character, and
although books could not develop the last, inheritances from a line
of men, and at least one woman, who had always thought and acted
for themselves, however mistakenly, were stirring. She had been too
managed and surrounded to find herself as yet, but she had begun
to suspect that the ego has a life of its own and certain inalienable
rights.
The journey north sent France to bed again for three days, and
for a fortnight he was wheeled about the park; then he began to
hobble feebly, first on the arm of his nurse or wife, then with the aid
of a stick. Julia accepted him as one of the facts of existence,
regarded him proprietorally, took an immense interest in his progress
toward recovery, and forgot him when she could in the library or in
long walks over the moors. The castle was romantically situated on a
cliff overhanging the North Sea, and in appearance, as in
surroundings, was all that Julia could ask. It was very brown, two-
thirds of it was in ruins, and the other third included a feudal hall,
two towers, and walls four feet thick. The windows, however, had
been enlarged, hot-water pipes had been put in, and no modern
house was more sanitary. The duke, despite a pardonable pride in
his ancestry, and an unmitigated conservatism in politics, was strictly
up to date where his health and comfort were concerned. Born an
invalid, he had lived longer than many of his burly ancestors, owing
to a thin temperament and an early and avid interest in hygiene.
He had a second reason for bringing Harold to Bosquith. The
neighboring borough was much under his influence, and he
proposed that his relative should stand for it at the next general
election. At the last it had succumbed to the personal manipulation
of Gladstone, who had taken a lively pleasure in routing the duke;
but it was conservative by habit, and not a measure of either
Gladstone’s government or that of his successor had met with its
approval. It was in just the frame of mind to be nursed by a genial
and tactful duke. France fell in with these plans, and, when able to
meet the local leaders, laid aside his almost unbearable haughtiness
of manner, and assumed a bluff sailorlike heartiness which
impressed them deeply.
Julia quickly revived in the bracing air of sea and moor, and as
France rose late and retired early, besides sleeping a good deal
during the day, and as she had acquired a certain skill in dodging the
duke,—who, moreover, took his local duties very seriously,—she felt
happy and free once more. The library was well furnished, the moors
were purple, her bedroom was in an ancient tower, and the sea
boomed under her window. She wrote long letters to her grimly
triumphant mother, and, now and again, to Bridgit and Ishbel. The
former, accompanied by her husband and Nigel, rode over to see
her, but she was obliged to receive them in the chilling presence of
her husband and the duke, and when the brief visit came to an end,
was put on her honor not to leave the estate.
“As soon as Harold is quite recovered,” said the duke, “we will
both drive over with you, for I am far from counselling you to be
rude to any one. Only, while your husband is ill, it would be highly
indecorous for you to be associating with young people; and for the
matter of that, the more mature minds with which you associate
during the next few years, the better—for us all, my dear, for us all.”
But Julia, at this period, was quite independent of people. Her
newly awakened intellect was clamoring for books and more books.
Politics, the planets, the “brilliant future,” friends, were alike
forgotten. Nothing mattered but the lore that scholars and worldlings
had gathered, that ravening maw in her mind. Perhaps this early
ingenuous stage of the mind’s development is its happiest; it is
uncritical, having no standards of life and personal research for
comparison, it swamps the real ego, while mightily tickling the false,
it obliterates mere life, no matter how unsatisfactory, and above all it
is saturated with the essence of novelty, the subtlest spring of all
passion. Julia, barely educated, found in histories, biographies,
memoirs, travels, even in works of science beyond her full
comprehension, a wonderland of which she had never dreamed,
much as she had longed for books on Nevis. That had been merely a
case of inherited brain cells calling for furniture; embarked upon her
adventure, these cells were crammed so rapidly that her ancestors
slept in peace, and Julia felt herself an isolated and completely
happy intellect.
Nevertheless, she was young.
One night, shortly after her husband, now able to grace the
evening board, had gone to his room, and the duke was closeted
with the conservative agent, she went to her own room, opened the
window, and hung out over the sea. The moon, whose malicious
alertness Captain Dundas had deplored, was at the full and flooded
a scene as beautiful in its way as the tropics. The great expanse of
water was almost still, and a broad path of silver seemed firm
enough to walk on straight away to the continent of Europe and its
untasted delights. Just round the corner was the rose garden, which
covered the filled-in moat on the south side of the castle and several
hundred yards beyond. The roses were not very good ones, being
somewhat rusted by the salt-sea spray, but, like the pleasaunce on
another side of the castle, were a part of the more modern traditions
of Bosquith; and the duke, although entirely indifferent to Nature
when she ceased to be useful and amused herself with being merely
beautiful, was a stickler for tradition; the roses were never neglected
without, although never brought within; pollen inflamed his mucous
membranes.
The blossoms had gone with the summer, but Julia was fancying
herself inhaling their perfumes when she became aware that the
figure of a man had detached itself from the tangle. She watched
him idly, supposing him to be one of the grooms, and wondering if
his sweetheart would follow. But the man was alone, and in a
moment he bent down, picked up a handful of loose stones, and
leaned back as if to fling them upward from the narrow ledge.
Simultaneously Julia and Nigel Herbert recognized each other.
“What—what—do you want?” gasped Julia, in a loud whisper.
“You,” said Nigel, grimly. “Come down here.”
“Impossible!” thrilling wildly, however.
 “If you don’t, I’ll break in. I’ve prowled round here for three
nights, and know the place by heart. The leads —”
“For heaven’s sake, go away!”
“Will you come down? I’m spraining the back of my neck, and
may slip off this narrow shelf any minute. Do you want to see my
mangled remains at the foot of the cliff?”
“No. No. But —”
“Come down. I must have a talk with you—have this thing out or
go mad. It’s little to ask!”
Julia glanced behind her at the circular room hung with arras (to
keep out draughts and conceal the hot-water pipes), and furnished
with a big Gothic bed and hard upright chairs—and thrilled again.
She was not the least in love with Nigel, but she suddenly realized
that she was nearly nineteen and romance had never entered her
life. After all, was love a necessary factor? Might not the romantic
adventure be something to remember always, particularly when
assisting a most unromantic husband achieve a political career, and
entertaining some of the dullest men in London? She hesitated but
an instant, then leaned out again.
“I’ll try,” she whispered.
“If you fail, I’ll come to-morrow night.”
“Very well, go into the rose garden—under the oak.”
She put on a dark cape and opened her door cautiously. The long
corridor was lighted by a small lamp: gas and electricity, not being
hygienic essentials, were not among the Bosquith improvements. All
the bedrooms opened upon this corridor, but Julia knew that her
husband slept, his capacity for instant and prolonged slumber being
one of his assets. She crept past the duke’s door. He was an early
bird, but was in the library still, no doubt, and the library was far
away. He would be sure to mount by the small stair beside it; the
grand staircase led to the unused drawing-rooms, and into the
immense hall, which, at this season with no guests in the castle, and
a library answering every requirement of the family, was
economically inexpedient. When a hereditary duke has several
entailed estates to keep up besides a town house, and a paltry
income of forty thousand pounds a year, he is put to shifts of which
the envious world knows nothing.
Down the grand staircase, therefore, stole Julia. It creaked even
under her small feet; behind the wainscot she heard gnawing sounds
of hideous import; and the darkness below was unrelieved by a
single silver gleam. But Julia possessed a valiant soul; moreover, was
determined to have her adventure. She felt her way past the
massive pieces of furniture toward a small door in the tower room
beneath her own; she dared not attempt to unchain and open the
great front doors studded with nails. She had used this humble
means of exit before, and although the room was full of rubbish, she
found the big rusty key without difficulty, opened the door, then with
another fearful glance about her stole toward the middle of the rose
garden. The old bushes were very high and ragged, but had it not
been for an oak tree in their midst, concealment for a man nearly six
feet high would have been impossible. Julia made her way straight
toward the tree, and uttered a loud “Shhh—” when Nigel
impetuously left its shelter.
“And even this is not safe,” she whispered, as they met. “We are
too near the castle, and the duke always takes a little walk before he
goes to bed. Follow me and don’t speak or make any noise.”
She led the way out of the rose garden and across the park to a
grove of ancient oaks. A brook wandered among the trees. The
moonlight poured in. The dark frowning mass of the castle was plain
to be seen. The sea murmured. A nightingale sang. No spot on earth
could have been more romantic. Julia shivered with delight, and
thanked the winking stars.
But Nigel was insensible to the romance of his surroundings.
Unlike the woman, he wanted the main factor; the setting could take
care of itself. And he was in a distracted and desperate frame of
mind. As Julia turned to him she experienced her first misgiving; his
face was set and very white.
 “This is where I often read and dream,” she said conversationally.
“It is my favorite spot.”
“Is it? It’s awfully good of you to come out. I can’t tell you how
much I appreciate it. I might have written, I suppose; but I can only
write fiction. Couldn’t put down a word of what I wanted to say to
you—of what I felt—” He broke off and added passionately, “Julia!
Don’t you care for me—the least bit?”
“No.” Julia, not having the faintest idea how to handle such a
situation, took refuge in the bare truth, at all times more natural to
her than to most women. “I don’t love you, but I think it rather nice
to meet you like this for once.”
Nigel groaned. Like all born artists, he understood something of
women by instinct, and felt more hopeless in the face of this
uncompromising honesty and artlessness than when alone with his
imagination.
“But you don’t love your husband?”
“Oh, no. Not the way you mean, at least. I’ve read a lot about
love these last months, and it must be wonderful. I’ve grown quite
fond of poor Harold, but I never could love him in that way. I wish I
could,” she added, with a sudden sense of loyalty to the absent and
sleeping husband.
“Julia, you must try to understand! You never can even tolerate
that man. You mustn’t live with him. We were plotting to save you
from him when he fell ill, and then we ho—we thought he’d die. But
he’s, he’s—Oh, please don’t look at me as if I were a cad. I know
you are a brick, and I’ve held out until he was on his legs again—
and I nearly off my head. I won’t say a word against him. Let it go
at this—you never can love him. That I can swear to and you know
it. But you could love some one, and it must, it must be me! It shall
be! Julia, if you could only guess what love means, then you might
have some idea, at least, of how I love you. But even your instincts
don’t seem to have awakened. And I haven’t the chance to teach
you! You must give it to me! You must!”
 “Do you want me to elope with you?” asked Julia, curiously. This
was a highly interesting development, and after the manner of her
sex, when indifferent, she grew cooler and more analytical as her
lover’s flame mounted.
“No—no—not yet. I only wanted a chance to-night to tell you
how I love you—to make you understand that much, if possible. Oh,
God! It must be communicable! When you are alone and think it
over—I hope—I hope—Meanwhile, I want you to promise to make
opportunities to meet me. I can’t go to the castle. But you can meet
me. On the moor. Here at night. I have waited long enough. France
no longer needs you. He is nearly well, and will get everything he
wants —”
“He wants me more than anything else,” said Julia, shrewdly.
“He’s as much in love with me as you are —”
“He shan’t have you!” shouted Nigel, and Julia stared, fascinated,
at a face convulsed with passion. It was the first time she had seen
this tremendous force unleashed, for France had done his courting
under the eagle eye of his future mother-in-law, and Nigel, during
their acquaintance in London, had not progressed outwardly beyond
sentiment. Julia, even while deciding that sentiment became his
fresh frank face better, and shrinking distastefully from a passion so
close to her, was conscious of disappointment in her own
unresponsiveness. Nineteen! What an ideal age for love! And what
lover could fill all requirements more satisfactorily than Nigel? But
she felt as cold as the moon. To her deep mortification she was
obliged to stifle a yawn; it was long past her bedtime. She answered
with such haste that her voice had an encouraging quiver in it.
“Oh, don’t let’s talk about him. It’s so jolly to see you again. Tell
me about your book. Have you finished it?”
“I didn’t come here to talk about my book.” Nigel’s voice was
rough. He came so close to her that she shrank once more, and
turned away her eyes. “Oh, I’m not going to touch you. I couldn’t
unless you wanted me to, unless you loved me— That is what I
want: the chance to make you love me. Will you give it to me?”
 “I—I don’t see how it is possible.” She longed to run, but her
female instincts were budding under this tropical storm, and one
prompted that if she ran, terrible things might happen. The most
honest of women is dishonest in moments of danger pertaining to
her sex. Julia felt danger in the air. She also rejected Nigel’s
protestations. She buckled on her feminine armor and turned to him
sweetly.
“I must think it over,” she said. “I never even dreamed that you
were in love with me. I should never dare come out again at night.
But perhaps on the moor, some morning —”
“I should prefer that. One of the keepers or servants might see
us in the park, and I don’t wish our love to be vulgarized —”
“Oh! I hadn’t thought of that! How horrid! I’ll go back this
minute. You stay here until I’ve had time to get inside. I’ll write to-
morrow. If you follow me, I shall never believe that you love me —”
Even while she spoke she was flitting through the grove with
every appearance of an alarm she did not feel at all. Nigel ran after
her.
“I’ll not follow if you will swear to meet me to-morrow morning—
on the cliffs three miles north from here.”
“Yes. Yes. I swear it.” And she fled into the broad moonlight
beyond the trees, while Nigel flung himself on the turf and gnashed
his teeth.
Julia, when she reached the upper corridor, almost ran into the
duke, but he was near-sighted, used to mice, and she cowered
behind an armored knight unsuspected. When she finally closed her
own door behind her, she found that all inclination to sleep had fled
and that she was more excited than while the immediate centre of a
love storm. She sat by the window for hours, thinking hard, and
feeling several years older. Quite honest once more, now that she
was safe behind a locked door, she examined her new problem on
every side. It was quite possible, she confessed, that if she had
loved Nigel, even a bit, she might have consented to his program,
for youth has its rights; she had not been consulted in her marriage,
she was more or less a prisoner, with no prospect of even youthful
companionship, and the idea of being a duchess did not interest her
at all. Of the meaning of sin she had but the vaguest idea.
But of loyalty and honor she had a very distinct idea. Instinct and
reason told her that she never would love Nigel; otherwise, with
every provocation, she must have loved him long since. Therefore
would it be unfair to play with him. She would far rather be married
to him than to France, for he was young and clever and charming,
but even were she free now, she would not marry him. Therefore
was it her duty to dismiss and cure him as quickly as possible, not
ruin his youth by keeping him dangling, after what she knew to be
the habit of many women. Also, for the first time, she felt really
drawn to her husband, so unconscious of her naughty adventure.
After all, she was his, he adored her, and he deserved every
reparation in her power. Who could tell?—she might love him. Love
appeared to be in the nature of a mighty river at spring flood; no
doubt it ingulfed everything in its way. She had leaped to one side
to-night, but her husband—yes, it was conceivable that she might
stand still and await the flood without making faces.
She felt extremely satisfied and virtuous as she lit her candle and
wrote a kind but uncompromising letter to Nigel, taking back her
promise to meet him on the morrow, and warning him that if he
wrote to her she should give his letters to her husband. It was not in
her to do anything of the sort, but she had the gift of a fine
straightforward forcible style, and her letter so enraged Nigel that he
left England as quickly as steam could take him, cursing her and all
women.
So ended their first chapter.
 IX
The curtain had fallen on the first act of “La Traviata,” and Ishbel,
for once alone in the box with her husband, glanced idly over the
imposing tiers of Covent Garden. Royalty was present, the smart
peeresses were out in full force and wore their usual brave display of
tiaras and miscellaneous jewels, inherited and otherwise, so that the
horseshoe glittered like Aladdin’s palace. There was also a jeweller’s
window in the stalls, and altogether it was a representative night in
the beginning of the season.
Nevertheless, Ishbel became suddenly and acutely aware that
she had on more jewels than any woman in the house. Not only was
there an all-round and almost unbearably heavy tiara on her small
head, nearly a foot high and composed of diamonds and emeralds
as large as plums, but she wore a rope of diamonds that reached far
below her knees, a necklace of five rows of pearls as big as her
husband’s thumb nails, and linked with emeralds and diamonds, a
sunburst of diamonds that looked like a waterfall, and equally
priceless gems cutting into the flesh of her tender shoulders where
they clasped the only visible portion of her raiment. Ishbel was justly
proud of her magnificent collection of jewels, but, being a young
woman of unerring good taste, was in the habit of wearing a few at
a time. Several hours earlier, however, her husband, grown jealous
of the prosiliency of the New South African millionnaires, had come
home with the rope and commanded her to put on every jewel she
possessed for the opera that night, and the first great ball of the
season to follow. As she had surveyed herself in her long mirror it
had occurred to her that she looked like a begum, but when she had
called her husband’s attention to the fact, and suggested some
modification in her display of converted capital, he had replied curtly
that he had spent a quarter of his fortune for the public to look at on
her equally ornamental self, and that when he wished it displayed in
toto, displayed it should be. That is the way for a man to talk to his
wife when he means to be obeyed; and when the masterful and
successful Mr. Jones delivered his ultimatums, few that had aught to
do with him were so hardy as to continue the argument.
Ishbel had trained herself to take him humorously, to believe him
the most generous of men because he had proved quite amenable
to the family plan of marrying off her sisters (they were handsome
and an additional excuse for entertaining), and because he never
alluded to her enormous bills or forgot to hand her a check for pin-
money every quarter. She had rewarded him with thanks couched in
an endless variety of terms and glances, even caresses when he
demanded them. When they were alone at table (as seldom as she
could manage) she even coquetted with him, giving him the full play
of her piquant eyes and sweet smile, and talking in her brightest
manner, to conceal from himself how hopeless he was in
conversation. She even pitied him sometimes; for, in spite of his
riches, his interests in the City, and the great position in society that
she had given him, he seemed to her a lonely being, and she would
have loved him if she could.
To-night, however, his words had rankled. They had echoed
during the drive to the opera-house, stirring her most amiable of
minds to a vague anger; and now, quite suddenly, she was filled
with an intense mortification and resentment. Every intelligent being
that has made a signal mistake in his life’s order has some sudden
moment of awakening, of vision. The phrase “kept wife” had not yet
arrived in literature, but it rose in Ishbel’s mind as she glanced from
her white slender body, weary in its glittering armor, to the big heavy
man opposite, sitting with a hand on either knee, his hard bright
little eyes surveying her with triumphant approval. She was his
property; he owned her, as he owned his house in Park Lane, the
castle he had recently bought from a peer terrified by the
remodelling of the death duties, his princely equipages, the noisy
jewels on her person. After all, she had not a penny of her own, was
as poor as when she had been one of fourteen hopeless sisters in
Ireland; for he had carefully abstained from settlements, that she
might feel her dependence, thank him periodically for his splendid
checks. Her father had been in no position to insist upon
settlements, but, had he been, would she be any better off ethically
than now? They would have been but another present from the man
who had bought her as he had bought his other famous possessions.
If she had children, they would be his, not hers, and there was
nothing he could not compel her to do, and be upheld by the laws of
his country, unless he both beat her and kept a mistress.
She suddenly loathed him. That she had given him value received
made her loathe him, and herself, the more. She shrank until she
expected to hear her jewels rattle together, then raised her eyes
again and flashed them about the house. She picked out twenty
women in that glance who had sold their beauty for what their
jewels represented, although, for the most part, they had the saving
grace to be owned by gentlemen. But were they so much better off?
Jones, at least, was now inoffensive in his manners and speech.
Many gentlemen she knew were not, and one duke had a habit of
catching her by the arm and leering into her crimsoning ear a horrid
story. But that was not the point. What was the point? That women
who married men for jewels and not for love were no better than the
women of the street? Most women would have stopped there. It is a
sentimental form of reasoning, eminently satisfactory to many
women, and to some male novelists. But Ishbel had been born with
a clear logical brain in which the fatal gift of humor was seldom
dormant, and of late this brain had shown symptoms of impatience
at neglect, muttered vague demands for recognition. Youth, a
natural love of gayety, pleasure, splendor, reigning as a beauty, a
laudable desire to help one’s family,—all very well—but —
Ishbel’s inner vision pierced straight down to the root
(ornamentally overlaid) of the whole matter. The portionless woman,
whether there was love between herself and her husband or not,
was a property, a subject, an annex, nothing more, not even if she
bore him children. Indeed, in the latter case she but proved the old
contention that in bearing children she fulfilled her only mission on
earth.
 Ishbel had heard, as one hears of all civilized activities, of
Woman’s Suffrage; this, too, passed in review before that search-
light in her mind, and she wondered if the women asking for it dared
to do so unless economically independent. She and Bridgit, when
resting on their labors two years before,—a breathing spell in the
grouse season,—had amused themselves in the library tracing the
course of woman during those periods of the world’s history when
she had been famous for her innings; and both had been struck by
the fact that when nations were at peace and man enjoyed
prosperity and comparative leisure, woman’s eminence and apparent
freedom had been but her lord’s opportunity to display his riches and
gratify the non-military side of his vanity. Only in a small minority of
cases had this eminence and freedom been the result of self-
support, inherited wealth, genius, or dynastic authority: the vast
majority had been toys, jewel-laden henchwomen; even the great
courtesans had been dependent upon their youth and charm and the
caprice of man.

No wonder so few women had left an impress on history. How

could any brain, even if endowed with true genius, reach the highest
order of development while the character remained flaccid in its
willing dependence upon the reigning sex? And man had despised
woman throughout the ages, even when most enslaved by her,
knowing that on him depended her very existence. He had the
physical strength to wring her neck, and the legal backing to treat
her as partner or servant, whichever he found agreeable or
convenient. She and Bridgit had discussed this phenomenon
philosophically but impersonally, it being understood that when they
did give their brains exercise, it should not interfere with their
youthful enjoyment of life; nor should the exercise continue long
enough to become a habit; time enough for that sort of thing when
one had turned thirty. But it occurred to Ishbel in these moments of
painful clarity. She had not taken the least interest in Woman’s
Suffrage, a movement under a cloud at this time, but she had a
sudden and poignant desire to be independent, and a simultaneous
conviction that no woman was worthy of anything better than being
one of man’s miscellaneous properties until she were. What right
had women, supported by men, living on their exertions or fortunes,
displayed or used at their pleasure, tricking them by a thousand
ingenious devices to gain their ends, to be regarded as equals,
political or otherwise? The most democratic of woman employers,
unless a faddist, did not regard her employees, particularly her
servants, as equals; and yet they, at least, worked for their bread,
were economically independent, could throw up their situations
without scandal. Ishbel had twenty-three servants in her ugly Park
Lane mansion, and in the bitterness of her humiliation she felt
herself the inferior of the scullery maid. She opened her eyes wide,
staring out upon the world through the glittering curtain before her.
What an extraordinary world it was! How silly! How uncivilized! How
incomplete! What might not women attain with complete self-
respect, and how utterly hopeless was their case without it!
“What are you thinking about?” asked Mr. Jones, curiously. He
had been watching her for some moments.
“That I ache with all these ridiculous jewels.” Ishbel stood up and
walked deliberately to the back of the box. “I feel as if I were
wearing an old-fashioned crystal chandelier. Will you kindly put my
cloak on?”
Jones had risen (being well trained in the small courtesies), but
he showed no intention of following her.
“Certainly not,” he said peremptorily. “Sit down. I wish you to
remain here until it is time to go to the duchess’s ball —”
“I’m not going to the duchess’s ball. I’m going home.”
He stared at her, his long straight mouth opening slightly, and his
heavy underjaw twitching. Like many millionnaires, self-made, he
looked like a retired prize-fighter, and for the moment he felt as old
gods of the ring must feel when brushed contemptuously aside by
arrogant youth. This was the first time his wife had shown the
slightest hint of rebellion, deviated from a sweetness and tact that
was without either condescension from her lofty birth, or servility to
his wealth. But there was neither sweetness nor tact in her small
pinched face. Her mouth was as compressed as his own could be,
and the expression of her eyes frightened him.
“What on earth’s the matter with you?” he asked roughly.
“I tell you I don’t like the idea of looking like an idol, a chandelier,
a begum, what you will; of having on more jewels than any woman
in the house; of looking nouveau riche, if you will have it. And I am
tired and am going home to bed. You can come or not, as you like.”
She put on her cloak. Jones, swearing under his breath, but
helpless, caught up his own coat and hat and followed her out of the
house. But although he stormed, protested, even condescended to
beg, all the way home, she would not utter another word, and when
she reached her room, locked the door behind her.
 X
The next morning she sought Bridgit, having ascertained by
telephone that her friend was alone. The Hon. Mrs. Herbert,
although “masculine” only in so far as Nature had endowed her with
a strong positive mind and character, physical and mental courage,
and a disdain of all pettiness (the hypothetical masculine ideal),
thought boudoirs silly, and called her personal room in South Audley
Street a den. Not that it in the least resembled a man’s den. It was a
long and narrow room on the first floor at the back of the house,
and furnished with deep chairs and sofas covered with flowered
chintzes, and several good pieces of Sheraton. She was known for
her fine collection of remarque etchings, and the best of them were
in this room. The large table was set out with reviews and new
books, which she bought on principle, although she found time for
little more than a glance at their contents. Her cigarette-box was of
elaborately chased silver. Good a sportswoman as she was, she was
not in the least “sporty,” being too well balanced and well bred to
assume a pose of any sort. She was a woman of the world with
many tastes, who was destined to have a good many more.
When Ishbel entered, she was walking up and down, her hands
clasped behind her, her heavy black brows drawn above the
brooding darkness below. She, too, was in an unenviable frame of
mind.
Her brows relaxed as she saw Ishbel. “What on earth is the
matter?” she exclaimed.
Ishbel, who had not slept but was quite calm, sat down and told
her story.
“I don’t suppose you quite understand how I feel,” she
concluded; “for you have always had your own fortune, have never
even been dependent on your father. But of one thing I am positive:
if you found yourself in my position, you would feel exactly as I do.
So I have come to you to talk it out.”
 “Of course I understand.” Bridgit turned her back and walked to
the end of the room. She longed to add: “It is quite as humiliating to
keep a husband as to be kept by one; rather worse, as tradition and
instincts don’t sanction it.” But there are some things that cannot be
said, save, indeed, through the offices of the pineal gland; and as
Bridgit, on her return march, paused and looked down upon Ishbel,
standing in an attitude of rigid defiance, with quivering, nostrils and
fierce half-closed eyes, possibly her friend received a telepathic
flash, for she exclaimed impulsively: —
“You are in trouble, too. What is it?”
“Trouble is a fine general term for my ailment. I’m merely
disgusted, dissatisfied—on general principles. Possibly it’s the effect
of reading Nigel’s book.”
“I haven’t had time to read it, but I’m so happy it has created a
furore, and hope he’ll come back to be lionized. Odd he should write
about the slums.”
“Not at all. The slums are always being discovered by bright
young men, who, with the true ardor of the explorer, proceed to
enlighten the world. Nigel—the story’s not up to much—but he has
the genius of expression, and, having made the amazing discovery
of poverty, communicates his own amazement that it should have
continued to exist in civilized countries up to the eve of the
twentieth century—and his horror at its forms. Some of his scenes
are quite awfully vivid. But he’s no sentimentalist; he doesn’t call for
more charities; he doesn’t even pity the poor; he despises them as
they deserve to be despised for being poor, for their asininity in
permitting and enduring. But he demands in their name, since the
best of them are wholly incompetent as thinkers, that the educated
shall favor a form of Socialism which shall not only provide
remunerative employment for them, but compel them to work—
grinding the idle, the worthless, the vicious to the wall, and training
the new generation to annihilate poverty. Great heaven! What a
disgrace it is—that poverty—to the individual, to the world, to the
poor, to the rich. I never realized it until I read that book. Other
‘discoverers’ have put my back up. But Nigel is one of us; and when
he sees it—and what a clear vision he has —”
“How splendid!” cried Ishbel, also forgetting her own trouble for
the moment. “And to be able to write like that will help him to forget
Julia—must make all personal affairs seem insignificant. Would that
we all had such a solace!”
“Solace! We are both strong enough to scorn the word. But
having been awakened, I should have no excuse if I went to sleep
again. Nor you. I haven’t made up my mind what I’ll do yet, merely
that I’ll do something. I’m sick of society. It’s a bally grind. Five
years of it are enough for any woman with brains instead of porridge
in her skull. I’m glad you’ve had a shock about the same time—
should have administered it if you hadn’t. Of course I shall continue
to hunt, and keep house for Geoffrey, and watch over my child, but
all that uses up about one-tenth of my energies, and no more. What
I’ll do, I don’t know. I’m floundering. Lovers are no solution for me.
They’re démodés, anyhow. I’m after some big solution both
elemental and progressive. Of course I shall begin with politics—by
studying our problems on all sides, I mean, not having hysterics over
the party claptrap of the moment. That and a hard course in German
literature will tone my mind up. It’s all run to seed. The rest will
come in due course. Tell me what you propose to do. But of course
you’ve had no time to decide.”
“Oh, but I have. I’m going to open a milliner shop.”
“What?” Mrs. Herbert sat down.
“You may think me vain, but I know that I can trim hats better
than any woman in London.”
“Yes—of course. But Mr. Jones?”
“I think I can make him consent—advance me the money—by
persuading him that it is a new fad with the aristocracy—I’ll point
out to him several titles over shops in Bond Street.”
“You have an Irish imagination. He won’t hear of it.”
“I’m sure I can talk him over—”
 “Besides, it isn’t fair. It will make no end of talk, and him
ridiculous. If you go in for independence—and do, by all means—
don’t begin your sex emancipation with the sex methods of second-
rate women. Men are supposed to be direct, straightforward, above
the petty wiles to which women have been compelled to resort since
man owned them. They are not, but, being the ruling sex, have
forced the world to accept them at their own estimate. Besides, they
find the standard convenient. That it is a worthy standard, no one
will dispute. At least if we women cannot be wholly truthful, we need
not be greater liars than they are. And we can score a point by
adopting the same standard. Tell Mr. Jones that you have decided
upon independence, that if he doesn’t put up the money, I will; but
don’t throw dust in his eyes—I doubt if you could, anyhow.”
“Would you really?”
“Of course I would. It would be great fun. But what is the rest of
your program? Do you propose to leave him? To cook his social
goose?”
“No, he has been too generous, whatever his motives. No girl has
ever had a better time, and nothing can alter the fact that he has
rescued my family from poverty. Even if he cut both daddy and
myself off his pay-roll, Aleece and Hermione and Shelah are rich
enough to take care of the rest. I have done my duty by the family!
No, I am quite willing to occupy a room in his house, go to the opera
with him, even to such social affairs as I have time and strength for
—I really intend to work, mind you, and to start in rather a small
way, that I may pay back what I borrow the sooner.”
“How you have thought it all out! I wish I had something definite
in sight. I despise the women that merely fill in time with intellectual
pursuits, and I’ll be hanged if I take to settlement work—the last
resource of the novelist who wants to make his elevated heroine ‘do
something.’ I must find my particular ability and exercise it. To work
with you actively in the shop would be a mere subterfuge, as I don’t
need money. But never mind me—When are you going to speak to
Mr. Jones?”
 “This afternoon. I wanted to talk it out with you first. We Irish
are extravagant. I was afraid I might have got off my base a bit.”
“The world will think you mad, of course. But that only proves
how sane you are. I wish I could get together about a hundred
women, prominent socially—merely because society women are
supposed to be all frivolous—to set a pace. I assume that the
average woman in any class is a fool, but there is no reason why she
should remain one; and the exceptional women, of whom there
must be thousands, only lack courage, initiative, a leader. By the
way, what do you hear of Julia? I haven’t had a letter for two
months.”
“They are to remain at Bosquith until the dissolution of
Parliament, nursing their constituency. She is doing the lady-of-the-
manor act, visiting among the poor, petting babies, and all the rest
of it—but putting in most of her time with her beloved books. She
rarely mentions France’s name.”
“Never to me. But I know from one of my aunts—Peg—that he’s
too occupied getting back his health and pleasing the duke to drink
or let his temper go. No doubt he’s making a very decent husband.
It may last. But whether it does or not, I’m not going to let Julia go.
She’s made of uncommon stuff and must become one of us.”
 XI
It was with some trepidation that Ishbel sought her husband in
the library a few hours later, and, in spite of her resolve to “be
square,” could not resist assuming her most ingratiating manner. Her
eyes were full of witchery, her kissable mouth wore its most
provocative curves. Anything less like an emancipated wife or a
prospective business woman never rose upon man’s haunted
imagination; and as for Mr. Jones, who had been waiting for an
explanation of some sort, he thought that she had come to
apologize, to confess to a passing hysteria, possibly to jealousy
induced by the fact that the wife of one of the South African
millionaires had worn a ruby the night before that was the talk of
the town. Well, she should have a bigger one if the earth could be
made to yield it up.
Mr. Jones returned home every afternoon at precisely the same
hour, and to-day, having “smartened up,” was sitting in a leather
chair near the window with a finance review in his hand, when
Ishbel entered. He did not rise, but asked her if she felt better,
indicated a chair opposite his own, and waited for her to begin. She
should have her ruby, or whatever it was she wanted, but not until
she was properly humble and asked for it.
Ishbel smiled into those eyes that always reminded her of shoe
buttons, and said sweetly, “I was horrid, of course, last night —”
“You were. And it was extremely unpleasant for me at the ball.
Nobody addressed me except to ask where you were. I felt like a
keeper minus his performing bear.” His tone was not without
bitterness.
“I am so sorry. But I could not go. I wanted to think.”
“Think? Why on earth should you think? You have nothing to
think about; merely to spend money and look beautiful.”
 Ishbel smiled again, showing her dimples. There was not an edge
of her inflexible will visible in the beautiful hazel eyes that she
turned full upon him. “Well, the fact remains that I did think. And
this is the result: I wish to earn my living.”
His jaw dropped. He thought she had lost her mind.
“It is quite true, and I mean to do it. I find I don’t like living on
any one. We’ve never pretended to love each other. If we did—well,
I think I should have felt the same way a little later. As it is, I don’t
find it nice, living on you —”
“You’re my wife!” thundered Mr. Jones. “What the hell are you
talking about?”
“I’ve no right to be your wife—”
“You’ve been a damned long time finding it out—”
“Five years. Bridgit says I have an Irish imagination. I’ve worked
it persistently for five years, and worked it to death. I not only
persuaded myself that I was doing you a tremendous service, but
that I was entirely happy in being young and having all the luxuries
and pleasures and gayeties that youth demands. I am only twenty-
four. Five years in one’s first youth is not so long a time for delusion
to last —”
“Have you fallen in love?”
“Not for more than three hours at a time. Somehow, you all fall
short, one way or another. I think I have fallen in love with myself.
At all events I want an individual place in the world, and, as the
world is at present constituted, the only people that are really
respected are those that either inherit fortunes or abstract the
largest amount of money from other people. Even birth is going out
of fashion. It doesn’t weigh a feather in the scale against money.”
“You’re talking like a lunatic. I couldn’t have got into society with
all my millions without you, or some one else born with a marketable
title, and you know it.” Mr. Jones was so astonished that only plain
facts lighted the chaos of his mind.
 “All the same you are far more respected than my poor old
father, who is a lineal descendant of the O’Neil. Even if people did
not respect you personally,—and of course they do,—they all respect
you far more than they do me. Who would look at me if I had
married one of your clerks—birth or no birth? And who regards me,
as it is, but anything more than one of your best investments? I am
useful to you and pay my way, but I’m of no earthly importance as
an individual. I haven’t even as good a position as Bridgit, who
inherited a fortune, although a bagatelle compared to yours —”
“Is that what you’re after—a slice of my fortune in your own
right?”
“No, I only want enough to start me in business, and I shall pay
it back —”
“I’ll have you put in a lunatic asylum. What business do you
fancy you could make a go in? Mine?”
“No. The French bourgeoisie are about the only people that have
solved the sex problem: every woman in the shop-keeping class, at
least, is her husband’s working partner. But financial brains are not
indigenous to my class. If I had one, I’d make myself useful to you
in the only way that counts, and charge you high for my services.
But as it is, I’m going to do the one thing I happen to be fitted for—
I’m going to be a milliner.”
“A milliner!” roared Mr. Jones. His face was purple. It was all very
well to assume that his butterfly had gone mad; he had a hideous
premonition that she was in earnest and as sane as he was. In fact,
he felt on the verge of lunacy himself. He could hear his house of
cards rattling about him.
“Yes,” said Ishbel, smiling at him, as she had always smiled when
asking him to invite another of her sisters to visit them. “I can trim
hats beautifully. My hats are noted in London —”
“They ought to be. The bills that come from those Paris
robbers —”
“I retrim every hat I get from the best of them. And I’ve pulled to
pieces the hats of some of the richest of my friends. They will all
patronize me. I shan’t rob them, and I have at least fifty ideas for
this season that will be original without being bizarre—hats that will
suit individual faces and not be duplicated. Oh, I know that I have a
positive genius for millinery!”
The purple fell from Mr. Jones’s face, leaving it pallid. He stared
at her, not only in consternation, but in deeper perplexity than he
had ever felt in his life. Probably there is no state of the masculine
mind so amusing to the disinterested outsider as the chaos into
which it is thrown by some unexpected revelation of woman’s
divergence from the pattern. It has only been during those long
periods of the world’s history, as Bridgit and Ishbel had discovered,
when men were at war, that women, poor, even in their castles, with
every faculty strained to feed and rear their children, and no society
of any sort, often without education, have given men the excuse to
regard them as inferior beings—physical prowess at such times
being the standard. But men have had so many rude awakenings
that their continued blindness can only be explained by the fact that
a large percentage of women, while no idler and lazier than many
men, have been able to flourish as parasites through the accident of
their sex. During every period of comparative peace and plenty,
women of another caliber have shown themselves tyrannous, active,
exorbitant in their demands, and mentally as alert as men. If they
disappeared periodically, it was only because they had not fully
found themselves, had exercised their abilities to no definite end. A
recent German psychologist, one of the maddest and most
ingenious, discovered something portentous in such periodicity as he
took note of: the prominence of woman in the tenth, fifteenth, and
sixteenth centuries, and again in the nineteenth and twentieth,
assuming it to be the result of an excess of hermaphrodite and
sexually intermediate forms, a state of affairs not unknown in the
vegetable kingdom. Therefore, must woman’s periodic revolt mean
nothing more than a biological phenomenon.
This theory would furnish food for much uneasiness were it not
that the philosopher overlooked, deliberately or otherwise, the fact
that woman’s star has flamed at some period or other in nearly
every century, and that these periods have coincided with man’s
ingenuous elevation of her to gratify his vanity while his chests were
full and his weapons idle. Since the beginning of time, so far as we
have any record of it, women have sprung to the top the moment
that peace permitted wealth, leisure, and servants; and so far from
their success being due to abnormality, their progress and
development have been steadily cumulative. To-day, for the first
time, they are highly enough developed to take their places beside
men in politics, know themselves well enough to hold on, not drop
the reins the moment the world’s conditions demand the physical
activities of the fighting sex.
Although the great Woman’s Suffrage movement was, for the
moment, in the rear of the world’s problems, thousands of women in
England and America were thinking of little else, planning and
working quietly, awaiting their leader. This psychological wave had
washed over Ishbel’s sensitive brain and done its work quite as
thoroughly as if she had gone to Manchester and sat at the feet of
Dr. Pankhurst. It is the fashion to give Ibsen the credit of the revolt
of woman from the tyranny of man, but that is sheer nonsense to
any one acquainted with the history of woman. Ibsen was a
symptom, a voice, as all great artists are, but no radical changes
spring full fledged from any brain; they are the slow work of the
centuries.
“Perhaps I should have put it another way,” said Ishbel. “I fancy
the point is, not that the world respects you more for amassing
wealth, but that you respect yourself so enormously for having won
in the greatest and most difficult game that men have ever played.
Diplomacy is nothing to it. That only requires brains and training. To
coax gold from full pockets into empty ones and remain on the right
side of the law, requires a magnetic needle in the brain, and is a
distinct form of genius. Talk about riches not bringing happiness, I
don’t believe there is a rich man living, even if he has only inherited
his wealth, who does not find happiness in his peculiar form of self-
respect, and in his contempt for the failures. If he has inherited, it is
an achievement to retain, and when he has made his fortune, he
must feel a bigger man than any king. Well, in my little way, I
purpose to enjoy that sensation. And to make money, to accumulate
wealth, is, I am positive, one of the primary instincts—if it were not,
the world would have been socialistic a thousand years ago. But the
secret desire in too many millions of hearts has prevented it —”
“My God!” roared Mr. Jones. “Have you got brains?”
“I hope so.” She smiled mischievously. “I couldn’t make money
without them.”
“Suppose you had half a dozen children?”
“Of course, if I hadn’t thought it all out in time, I should bring
them up first. But I feel sure the time will come when every self-
respecting woman will want to be the author of her own income—
when no girl will marry until she is.”
Mr. Jones looked and felt like the fisherman who has gone out in
a sail-boat to catch the small edible prizes of the sea, and landed a
whale.
“You never thought that all out for yourself,” he growled. “Where
did you get it, anyhow?”
“Last night I realized that I had been learning unconsciously for
years, and remembered everything worth while I had ever heard
men and women talk about. After all, you know, clever men do talk
to me.”
“Clever men are always fools about a pretty face.”
He got up and moved restlessly about the large room, too full of
furniture for a man with big feet, and long awkward arms which he
did not always remember to hold close to his sides. He longed for his
punch bag. Ishbel smiled and looked out of the window.
“What in hell’s come over women?” he demanded. “I thought
they only wanted love when they talked of happiness.”
“Oh, you’re like too many men—have got your whole knowledge
of women from novels. Perhaps you even read the neurotic ones
that are having a vogue just now. Wouldn’t that be funny! We
women want many things besides love, we Englishwomen, at least;
for we belong to the most highly developed nation on the globe. And
we are the daughters of men as well as of women, remember. And
we have heard the affairs of the world discussed at table since we
left the nursery. That man doesn’t realize what he has made of us is
a proof that he is so soaked in conventions and traditions that he is
in the same danger of decay and submergence that nations have
been when too long a period of power has made them careless and
flaccid—and blind. We want love, but as a man wants it; enough to
make us comfortable and happy, but not to absorb our whole
lives —”
“What?” Mr. Jones swung round upon her, his little black eyes
emitting red sparks. “That’s the most immoral speech I ever heard a
woman make.”
“I shall keep faith with you,” said Ishbel, carelessly. “Don’t worry
yourself. I’ve made a bargain with you and I shall stick to it, just as I
shall be perfectly square in business. All I want is to be as much of
an individual as you are, not an annex.”
Mr. Jones had an inspiration and resumed his seat. “Look here!”
he said. “You say you play a square game, that you will live up to
your contract with me; and marriage is a partnership, by God! Well—
if you go setting up for yourself, you injure my credit. I’m in a lot of
things where credit is everything. Money (actual gold and silver) is
not so plentiful as you think, and the greatest coward on earth. If
there should be the slightest suspicion that I was unsound —”
“Why should there be? You will continue to live here in the same
style, and I shall keep my rooms, and go about with you once or
twice a week—even wear some of your jewels. What more could you
ask?”
“What more?” Jones was purple again. “This: I didn’t marry to be
made a laughing-stock of. Everybody’ll say I’m mean —”
“Not if you set me up. And you can get your good friend, The
Mart, to say that I am ambitious to set a new style in fads —”
“There are some statements that no fool will swallow—let alone
sharp business men in the City. Fad, indeed—when you will be
standing on your feet all day in a milliner shop—unless—” hopefully
—“you merely mean to put your name over the door to draw
customers, and pocket the proceeds. That would be bad enough—
but —”
“By no means. What possible satisfaction could I get out of
making other people do what I want to do myself? You might as well
ask an author if he would be content to let some one else write his
books so long as he had his name on the title page and pocketed
the profits. The joy of succeeding must lie in the effort, in knowing
that you are doing something that no one else can do in quite the
same way. I can be an artist even in hats, and I propose to be one.”
“And if I refuse you the capital?”
“Bridgit will lend it to me.”
“I am to be blackmailed, so!”
“What is blackmail?”
“As if a woman need ask! Every woman is a blackmailer by
instinct. I suppose that if I won’t give you the money for this
ridiculous enterprise, you will leave my house—ruin me socially, as
well as financially?”
But Ishbel’s wits were far nimbler than his. “No,” she said
sweetly, “I can never forget that I owe you a great deal. Whether
you advance me the capital or not, I shall continue to live here, and
entertain for you whenever I have time.”
The mere male was helpless, defeated. A month later his name
was over a shop in Bond Street, and the success of the lady whose
title preceded it was so immediate that he began to brag about her
in the City. But he was by no means reconciled. His order of life, that
new order in which he had revelled during five brief years, was sadly
dislocated. Many husbands and wives are invited separately in
London society, but he made the bitter discovery that when Ishbel
was forced to decline an invitation for luncheon or dinner he was
expected to follow suit. He could walk about at receptions or teas if
he chose, but it became instantly patent that no woman, save those
whose husbands were in his power, would see him at her table when
she could get out of it. There were one or two new millionnaires in
society that had achieved a full measure of personal popularity, and
were sometimes asked without their wives, but Jones was hopelessly
dull in conversation, and had a way of “walking up trains,” and
knocking over delicate objects with his elbows. And then he was
unpardonably ugly to look at; moreover, evinced no disposition to
pay the bills of any woman but his wife. That was a fatal oversight
on Mr. Jones’s part, but no one had ever been kind enough to give
him a hint.
All this was bad enough, but in addition he perceived that while
society patronized Ishbel’s shop, and pretended to admire or be
amused, they had respected her far more when she was reigning as
a beauty and spending her husband’s vast income as carelessly as
the spoiled child smashes its costly toys. There is little real respect
where there is no envy, and no one envies a working woman until
she has made a fortune and can retire. Ishbel had dazzled the world
with her splendid luck, added to her beauty and proud descent. It
had called her “a spoiled darling of fortune,” a “fairy princess,” and
such it had envied and worshipped. But she had stepped down from
her pedestal; her halo had fallen off; she was no longer a member of
the leisured class, haughty and privileged even when up to its neck
in debt. Mr. Jones’s position in the City was not affected, for men
knew him too well, but society suspected that his fortune was not
what it had been, and that his wife wanted more money to spend, or
was providing against a rainy day. If neither suspicion was true, then
she was disloyal to her class, and a menace, a horrid example. Her
personal popularity was unaffected, but her position was not what it
was, no doubt of that, and the soul of Mr. Jones was exceeding
bitter.
 XII
Lord Rosebery’s government, despite the duke’s optimistic
predictions, did not resign until June 24, consequently the general
election was not fought until July, and during all this time Julia was
kept at Bosquith; France, wholly amiable to his cousin’s wishes,
stuck close to his borough. He had not a political dogma, cared no
more for the Conservatives and Liberal-Unionists, than for
Nationalists, Liberals, Radicals, and Socialists, and he had no
intention of boring himself in Westminster save when his cousin
required his vote. But he had planned a very definite and pleasant
scheme of life, and the enthusiastic favor of the head of his house
was essential to its success. He intended to re-let his own place in
Hertfordshire, and live with the duke, both in London and in the
country, until such time as his patience should be rewarded and the
divine law of entail give him his own. He not only craved the luxury
of the duke’s great establishments (as English people understand
luxury), but, quite aware of the position he had forfeited among
men, he was determined to win it back. Not that he felt any
symptoms of regeneration, but the pride, which heretofore had
raised him above public opinion, assumed a new form during his
long convalescence, and prompted respectability and enjoyment of
the social position he had inherited.
His cousin, although knowing vaguely that his heir had been “a
bit wild,” and not as popular as he might be, was far too
unsophisticated to guess the truth, and too surrounded by flatterers
and toadies to hear what would manifestly displease him. Moreover,
although France was under such strong suspicion of card cheating
that no man would play with him, he had proved himself too clever
to be caught, therefore had escaped an open scandal. He had twice
avoided being co-respondent in divorce suits, once by shifting the
burden on to the shoulders of a fellow-sinner, and once by securing,
through a detective agency, such information that the wronged
husband let the matter drop rather than suffer a counter-suit. But
society was not his preserve. He was a man who had haunted
byways where women were unprotected, and far from the limelight;
and although there had been for twenty years the contemptuous
impression that he was one of the greatest blackguards in Europe,
that there was no villainy to which he had not stooped, he was, after
all, little discussed, for he was much out of England, and, when off
duty, went to Paris for his pleasures.
But although he had rather revelled in his dark reputation, he
had now undergone a change of mind if not of heart. He had had a
long draught of respectability, and of deference from his future
menials and the several thousand good men in his constituency who
had never heard of him before he came to Bosquith, as the
convalescent heir of their popular duke, and won them by looking
“every inch a man”; he had a young and beautiful wife with whom
he was as much in love as was in him to love any one but himself,
and in whom he recognized a valuable aid to his plan of social
rehabilitation. Established in London as hostess of one of its oldest
and most exclusive private palaces, with every opportunity to
exercise her youthful charm (like the duke he despised brains in
women), she would take but one season to draw about her a court
anxious to stand well with the future Duchess of Kingsborough. And
he was her husband. They could not ignore him if they would; and
they would have less and less inclination, viewing him daily as a man
ostentatioulsy devoted to his wife, taking his parliamentary duties
very seriously indeed (he knew exactly the right phrases to get off),
and living a life so exemplary and regular that his past would be
dismissed with a good-natured smile (for was he not a future
duke?), or openly doubted for want of proof. He knew that some
people would never speak to him, others never invite him to their
tables, although he might, with his wife and cousin, receive a card to
their receptions; but, then, London society was very large, and he
could endure the contempt of the few in the complaisance of the
many.
 His first quarry was the duke, already disposed to like him
extremely, as they were the last males of their race, and latterly
quite softened by certain sympathies and anxieties for his afflicted
relative that had never infused his dry smug nature before. He was
also one of those survivals that like anecdotes, and France, in his
wandering life, had insensibly collected an infinite number. Naturally
the most silent of men, he now made himself so agreeable that the
duke, long companionless, himself suggested the permanent
residence of the Frances under his several roofs, overrode all his
cousin’s manly objections, and looked forward to a revival of the
historic splendors of Kingsborough House with something like
enthusiasm. France cemented the new bond when he appeared, as
soon as his convalescence was over, at morning prayers, and even
compelled the attendance of the rebellious Julia.
This alien in the great house of France detested family prayers.
They were very long, the duke’s dull languid gaze travelled over his
shoulder every time she sat when she should have knelt, and they
came at an hour when she wanted to be on the moor or riding along
the cliffs. But when she openly expressed herself, her husband,
although he picked her up and kissed her many times, unobservant
that she wriggled, replied peremptorily: —
“Not another word, my little beauty. To prayers you must go. It’s
a rotten bore, but it’s the duty of a wife to advance her husband’s
interests. Get our mighty cousin down on us, and we live in
Hertfordshire all the year round.”
Although she hid the thought, Julia would have submitted to
more than prayers to avoid living alone in a small house in the
country with her husband. She had heard so much of duty during
the last year (even her mother’s letters were full of it), that she had
set her teeth in the face of matrimony, persuaded herself that
France was no more offensive than other husbands, that hers was
the common lot of woman, and, after reading Nigel’s book, that she
was singularly fortunate in not having been born in the slums. But
although she refused to admit to her consciousness a certain
terrified mumbling in the depths of her brain, she did acknowledge
that she no longer had the least desire for a child, and that she
hated the scent of the pomade on her husband’s moustache. It was
a pomade that had been fashionable for several years, and was used
as sparingly as possible on France’s bristles; but lesser trifles have
killed love in women, and Julia, frankly unloving, conceived an
unconquerable aversion for this sickly scent; to this day it rises in
her memory as associated with the abominable injustice that had
been committed on her youth.
But she kept her mind and time fully occupied. She visited the
sick, rode her good horse, and read until there was nothing left in
the Bosquith library to satisfy her still insatiable mind. Then, for the
first time, she realized that she had not a penny in her purse, had
not had since her first few weeks in London. She made out a list of
books she wanted, surmounted her diffidence, and asked her
husband if she might order them from London. France, when she
approached him, was smoking a pipe by the library fire, his cannon-
ball head sunken luxuriously into the cushions of the chair, and his
glassy eyes half closed. He pulled her down on his knee and read
the list, then laughed aloud and pinched her ear.
“Never heard of one of these books, but they have an expensive
look—wager not one of them costs under a pound. That would mean
about ten pounds—by Gad! That would never do. I’m economizing
and you must, too; for although we shall live with Kingsborough, we
can’t expect him to pay for our clothes and all the rest of it. Besides,
I don’t want an intellectual wife—had no idea you read such bally
rot. Intellectual wives are bores, get red noses, and rims round their
eyes. Jove! Think of those eyes gettin’ red and dim. I’d make a
bonfire of all the books in England first. No, my lady, it’s your
business to look pretty, and to remember a famous saying of our
future king: ‘Bright women, yes; but no damned intellect.’ We want
to have a rippin’ time as soon as Salisbury is in again, and I won’t
have you frightenin’ people off.”
“I never supposed you would care so much for society,” said
Julia, lamely. “I always think of you as a sailor.”
 “I want what’ll be mine before long—what I’ve been kept out of
long enough,” he answered savagely.
Julia was shocked. It was the first time he had betrayed himself,
so anxious had he been for her good opinion, so careful not to excite
himself with tempers until his heart was quite strong again. As she
left his knee and turned her disconcerting eyes on him, he recovered
himself with a laugh.
“I believe it’s all your mother’s fault. She told me it was your fate
—by all the stars!—to be a duchess, and I don’t think I’ve got it out
of my head since. But you know I’m devilish fond of my cousin—only
one I’ve got, for those old hags don’t count. I’ll chuck such ideas,
and—” his voice became sonorous with virtue—“think only of his
kindness and of serving my country when my time comes.”
The time came in July, and he carried his borough almost without
effort, so irresistible was the conservative reaction. He was not much
of an orator, but not much was required of him. He made a fine
appearance on a platform, and when, after a flattering introduction
by the chairman, he stood up before a sympathetic audience, and
between some scraps of party wisdom, furnished by the duke,
doubled up his aristocratic hand and wedged it firmly into his manly
thigh, and brought out in all its inflections: “Indeed, I may say—
Indeed, I may say—Indeed, I may say—Indeed I may say!” the
applause was stupendous.
Julia, sitting behind him with the duke, had much ado not to
laugh aloud, but, then, Julia was an alien, and had no appreciation
of gentlemen’s oratory.
She had taken more interest in the wives of the voters, and been
relieved to find that their poverty was rather picturesque than bitter
—Nigel’s book had given her a profound shock—but had wept at
some of the tales told by women that had relatives in London and
the great manufacturing towns of the north. After France’s final
triumph, when he had been carried back to Bosquith on the
shoulders of several honest yeomen, followed by a cheering mob of
several hundred more, she asked him impulsively (being electrified