“Indeed?  Then that is surely an error of civilization.  If a man can discuss such matters more easily with a woman who is not his wife, it is because there is no frankness in marriage.  Dick, did it ever occur to you that a man and woman, strongly attracted toward one another, might live together many years without understanding each other?”

“God forbid!”

“How easily you say that!”

“I have heard that most women think they are not understood, but I never reflected on the matter.”

“You and I have not troubled one another much with our doubts and perplexities.”

“You and I have been very happy together—­I hope.”  There was a little pause before the last two words, as if he had expected her to anticipate them with something, and there was a half interrogative note in his voice.  She made no response, so he went on, “I’ve surely not been a hard master—­and I hope I’ve not been selfish.  I know I’ve not been unloving.”

“And I hope you’ve not suffered many discomforts on my account.  I think, as women go, I am fairly reasonable—­or I have been.”

For some reason Shattuck seemed to find the cigar he was smoking most unsatisfactory.  Either it had been broken, or he had unconsciously chewed the end—­a thing which he detested—­and there was a pause while he discarded the weed, and selected a fresh one.  He appeared to be reflecting as he lighted it, and if his mind could have been read, it would have probably been discovered that he was wondering how it had happened that the conversation had taken this turn, and mentally cursing his own stupidity in making any remarks on the Schopenhauer.  He was conscious all the time that his wife was looking rather steadily at him, and he knew that at least a conventional reply was expected of him.

“My dear girl,” he said, “I look back on ten very satisfactory years of married life.  You have been a model wife, a charming companion—­and if occasionally it has occurred to me—­just lately—­that my wife has developed rather singular, to say the least, unflattering ideas of life, why, you have such a brilliant way of putting it, that I am more than half proud that you’ve the brains to hold such ideas, though they are a bit disconcerting to me as a husband.  I suppose the development is logical enough.  You were always, even as a girl, inclined to making footnotes.  I suppose their present daring is simply the result of our being just a little older than we used to be.  I suppose if we did not outgrow our illusions, the road to death would be too tragic.”

For a moment she made no reply.  Then, as if for the first time owning to the idea which had long been uppermost in her mind, she said suddenly:  “The truth of the matter is, that I really believe marriage is foolish.  I do believe that no man ever approached it without regretting that civilization had made it necessary, and that many men would escape, at the very last moment, if women did not so rigidly hold them to their promises, and if, between two ridiculous positions, marriage having been pushed nearest, had not become desperately inevitable.”