"So we're to be kept to our sphere!"
"Now don't be resentful. Naturally you're to be kept to your own sphere. If Edwin began dancing around in the kitchen, you'd soon begin to talk about his sphere. You can't have the advantages of married life for nothing--neither you nor he. But some of you women nowadays seem to expect them gratis. Let me tell you, everything has to be paid for on this particular planet. I'm a bachelor. I've often thought about marrying, of course. I might get married some day. You never know your luck. If I do----"
"You'll keep your wife in the harem, no doubt! And she'll have to accept without daring to say a word all the risks you choose to take."
"There you are again!" he said. "This notion that marriage ought to be the end of risks for a woman is astonishingly rife, I find. Very curious! Very curious!" He seemed to address the wall. "Why, it's the beginning of them. Doesn't the husband take risks?"
"He chooses his own. He doesn't have business risks thrust upon him by his wife."
"Doesn't he? What about the risk of finding himself tied for life to an inefficient housekeeper? That's a bit of a business risk, isn't it? I've known more than one man let in for it."
"And you've felt so sorry for him!"
"No, not specially. You must run risks. When you've finished running risks you're dead and you ought to be buried. If I was a wife I should enjoy running a risk with my husband. I swear I shouldn't want to shut myself up in a glass case with him out of all the draughts! Why, what are we all alive for?"
The idea of the fineness of running risks struck her as original. It challenged her courage, and she began to meditate.
"Yes," she murmured. "So you sleep at the office sometimes?"