“You’re right.  I wouldn’t have cut in for the world.  But, I say,” he cried gleefully, “what guile!  What plotfulness!  There’s no getting even with a woman, is there?  Little Mrs. Osborn and you lay your heads together, and she puts on her wedding frock—­”

Julia eyed him with a steely disdain.

“Kindly tell me why a woman should trouble herself to make plans to coax her husband?”

“Ask me another.  How do I know?  She did it, didn’t she?”

“Yes, because he was one of those beastly ‘hims,’ to be toadied and cajoled and fussed into a good humour before his wife dare ask for a carriage for the baby that belongs to both of them.”

“Oh, I see!  I see!  I say, I’m stupid, aren’t I?”

“I’ll forgive you your stupidity if you promise me never to marry and make any woman miserable.”

Rokeby became slightly nettled.

“Why shouldn’t I marry and make some woman happy?” he demanded.

“Ask me another; you men don’t seem to, do you?”

“You’re not very sympathetic to—­”

“Nor you.  Look here!  Bread and butter, and candles and bootblacking, and laundering, and expenses for a baby when you’ve got one, are all everyday things, aren’t they?  If a woman’s got to fuss and plan and cry and worry and fight just every day for the everyday things, is life worth while at all?  Isn’t a girl like me, in full possession of her health, mistress of her own life, filling her own pocket, better off than a girl like Marie who’s married and lost it all?”

“Are you?” he demanded, stirred enough to look right into Julia’s eyes; and he saw what deep eyes they were, and what sincere trouble and question lay in them.

She fenced doggedly:  “I don’t see why Marie should be made wretched; she’s only twenty-six.  Is she to have that kind of fuss every day of her life?”

“She won’t want a new perambulator every day, we’ll hope.”

“Oh ... don’t be cheap!  You know what I mean.  Why can’t men meet domestic liabilities fairly and squarely with their wives?  Why must they be coaxed to look at a bill which they authorise their wives to incur?  Why is a man vexed because he’s got to pay the butcher, when he eats meat every day of his life?”

“Since you ask, my dear girl, I’ll tell you.  People are too selfish to marry nowadays and make a good job of it.  Most men always were; but then women used to go to the wall and go unprotestingly.  Now something’s roused them to jib.  They’re making the hell of a row.  They won’t stand it; and nobody else can.  So what’s to be done?”

“Is this marriage?” Julia asked coldly.

“No,” said Rokeby, “it’s war.”

“It ought not to be.”

“What do you suggest?”

“N-nothing.”

“Nor does anyone else,” Rokeby stated.

They were through the first course, and he replenished her glass with sparkling hock.  “Eat, drink, and be merry,” he counselled lachrymosely, “for to-morrow we may be married.”