"No, my dear," I murmured sadly, "it would be waste of time. I decline to see Merely Mary Arm. The subject is disgusting to me. We want to get away from ourselves when we go to the theater. We don't want to reopen wounds, and brood."
"But in this Zangwill play," she persisted, "Mary Ann inherits five million dollars, and becomes a society girl, in pink chiffon and low-neck."
"Which is immoral," I declared. "It is a nasty, low, and revolutionary idea—enough to make all cooks anarchists. Such plays should be prohibited by a censor. Positively to make a heroine of one of these creatures, who break up happy homes and make life unendurable, who seem to be responsible for everything, from race-suicide to—"
"Hush, Archie!" cried Letitia indignantly, "I can't discuss these social questions with you. I haven't been married long enough. I still consider them improper. Besides, you can't accuse Mrs. McCaffrey of race-suicide, with little Letitia—"
"Oh, they reserve the right to have as many children as they like," I retorted bitterly, "but if you had them, they would soon let you know what they thought of you."
"You mustn't talk to me like this, Archie," said Letitia, vexed, "you wouldn't have done so when we were engaged. I consider such conversation rowdy—just fit for the smoking-room. And as we haven't a smoking-room you must restrain yourself, please. However, I am willing to drop Merely Mary Arm. The reason I suggested it was that I thought it might make us both kinder and more indulgent."
"Imagine old Potzenheimer with five million dollars, and low-neck!" I exclaimed, outraged. "I call it absolutely nauseating."
"Not if we could imagine it, dear," she said gently. "Zangwill is an artist, and I hoped that if we saw the subject poetically treated, and really shed tears for Mary Ann, as Aunt Julia wrote me yesterday that she did—"
"No, Letitia. I should shed tears only for Mary Ann's employer. It is the employers who are the martyrs. It would be better and less expensive to stay at home and shed tears for ourselves. For example, I feel depressed when I think of that cabinet of Indian bibelots all in rack and ruin—the only present that Uncle Ben ever gave me, and he is dead!" I added lugubriously.
"How can you be so petty, Archie? I am surprised at you worrying about that ivory rubbish hidden away in a cabinet."