“Nothing of human origin is infallible, madam; and, for aught I can see to the contrary, nothing is infallible anywhere.”
“Do you believe it is better to break a bad bargain than to keep it?”
“That depends upon circumstances.”
“Why do you evade my question?”
“Because I can’t see what you’re driving at.”
“Then I’ll come at once to the point. Suppose you had been born a woman?”
“That isn’t a supposable case.”
“But we’ll let it rest for the present as if it were. Suppose you were born to be a woman,—we’ll put it that way for the sake of illustration,—and suppose, while you were yet a child, you had been married to a man many years your senior—married just to please somebody else—in defiance of your own judgment or desires?”
“Millions of women are married in that way every year, madam. Look at India, at China, at Turkey, and at many modern homes, even in England and America! It would seem to be the exception and not the rule where women get the husbands of their choice. I know it is the fashion to pretend they do; for a woman has to become desperately weary of her bargain before she’ll own up honestly to a matrimonial mistake.”