"I shall not congratulate you," she answered. "You are spoiled. The women have petted you too much."
"According to the old fairy tale all goes well with the man of whom the women are fond."
"I remember," she said. "I always pitied their wives."
"I shall treat Edith well."
"You are too good-natured not to, I suppose; especially when you look forward to your marriage with such rapture."
"But, Helen, have I ever pretended to believe in marriage? Marriage is a crime! Think of the wretched folly of those who talk of the holiness of love's being protected by the sanctities of marriage. If love is holy, let it have way; if it is not, all the sacraments priests can devise cannot sanctify it."
"Then why, Arthur, do you marry at all?"
"Because marriage is a necessary evil as society is at present constituted."
"But," Helen said slowly, "you who pretend to have so little regard for society—"
"Ah, there it is," he interrupted. "Man is gregarious by instinct; he must do as his fellows do. He must submit to the most absurd convenances of his fellowmen, as one sheep jumps where another did though the bar be taken away. If he were strong enough to stand alone he might take conventions by the throat and be a god!"