’What comparison is there?  I should be earning a hard livelihood by slaving for other people.  But a married woman who works in her own home, for her husband’s children—­’

’Work is work, and when a woman is overburdened with it she must find it difficult not to weary of home and husband and children all together.  But of course I don’t mean to say that my work is too hard.  All I mean is, that I don’t see why any one should make work, and why life shouldn’t be as full of enjoyment as possible.’

’Monica, you have got these ideas from those people at Chelsea.  That is exactly why I don’t care for you to see much of them.  I utterly disapprove of—­’

’But you are mistaken.  Miss Barfoot and Miss Nunn are all for work.  They take life as seriously as you do.’

’Work?  What kind of work?  They want to make women unwomanly, to make them unfit for the only duties women ought to perform.  You know very well my opinions about that kind of thing.’

He was trembling with the endeavour to control himself, to speak indulgently.

’I don’t think, Edmund, there’s much real difference between men and women.  That is, there wouldn’t be, if women had fair treatment.’

’Not much difference?  Oh, come; you are talking nonsense.  There’s as much difference between their minds as between their bodies.  They are made for entirely different duties.’

Monica sighed.

‘Oh, that word Duty!’

Pained unutterably, Widdowson bent forward and took her hand.  He spoke in a tone of the gravest but softest rebuke.  She was giving entertainment to thoughts that would lead her who knew whither, that would undermine her happiness, would end by making both of them miserable.  He besought her to put all such monstrous speculations out of her mind.

’Dear, good little wife!  Do be guided by your husband.  He is older than you, darling, and has seen so much more of the world.’

’I haven’t said anything dreadful, dear.  My thoughts don’t come from other people; they rise naturally in my own head.’

’Now, what do you really want?  You say you can’t live as we were doing.  What change would you make?’

’I should like to make more friends, and to see them often.  I want to hear people talk, and know what is going on round about me.  And to read a different kind of books; books that would really amuse me, and give me something I could think about with pleasure.  Life will be a burden to me before long if I don’t have more freedom.’

‘Freedom?’

‘Yes, I don’t think there’s any harm in saying that.’

‘Freedom?’ He glared at her.  ’I shall begin to think that you wish you had never married me.’

’I should only wish that if I were made to feel that you shut me up in a house and couldn’t trust me to go where I chose.  Suppose the thought took you that you would go and walk about the City some afternoon, and you wished to go alone, just to be more at ease, should I have a right to forbid you, or grumble at you?  And yet you are very dissatisfied if I wish to go anywhere alone.’