"I am not speaking of women—nor of unreasonable demands," she said. "Perhaps they do—I don't know. But Victor!" Margaret spoke with impassioned pleading, "I ask only the same fidelity I give. Is that too much?"
She faced him squarely with the question, her eyes burning into his very soul. Only the clock's tick broke the silence. Upon his answer, in word and deed, hung the destiny of his life and hers; of his home and hers; of his child, his unborn child, and hers.
"Is that too much?" she repeated.
He temporized.
"It is more than most women get. I can tell you that."
"Don't put me off. Is it more than I will get?" Her breast was heaving and her breath coming hard.
"Oh, Margaret, don't go into heroics!" he cried. "Listen to reason! Men can't be bound down by a woman's code of morals. They never have been, and they never will be. And women might as well understand it."
"Then marriage is a lie and a cheat!" she cried with vehemence. "You take the same vows that we do, and you take them saying to yourselves that you will keep them only so long as you chose, and will break them at your will!... But we—poor fools! we speak those vows with bated breath and souls bared before God, and mean to keep them—strive to keep them even when—"
"Is it such a struggle?" he asked, sneeringly.
"—even when faith in you is dead or dying. Yes. It is a struggle then. 'Love, honor, and obey!' Bah!"