"You ought to have been a woman."
"Why not?" retorted Gallatin. Courtney saw that Dick had irritated him. "In one respect I envy women. A woman knows whether or not a man loves her. A man can only hope and believe." And he glanced swiftly at her.
He looked confused, frightened, as her expression showed that she, the married woman, the lovelessly married woman, understood. She turned away abruptly, two bright red spots burning in her cheeks.
"Well," said the unobserving Richard to Gallatin, "I confess I don't grasp your meaning. But it doesn't matter. A good woman loves her husband, and he knows it. The rest's of no consequence. We must get him a wife, Courtney. He'd make an ideal husband, don't you think?"
"A good wife does not think," said Courtney.
Richard was amused. "But if she did?" he persisted.
"Then she'd probably think it fortunate for husbands that wives aren't independent."
Vaughan again looked puzzled. "That sounds as irrelevant as what Gallatin said a minute ago. Now will you tell us, what has it to do with what we were talking about?"
"I don't know," replied she. And she did not. She was astonished before this apparition of a thought she had not been conscious of having definitely in mind since that conversation with her mother long ago; and here it was popping up as if it were her constant companion. "It just came into my head," she went smilingly on. "You know we women are irresponsible, irrational beings, and so we don't think straight or talk connectedly."
She said good night, went up to her apartment. She was wishing now that Gallatin had not told her about this love of his for the woman across the seas. It had made her discontented—unhappy. It had compelled her to think what a patchwork of makeshifts her own life was. "Yet I ought to be contented. Haven't I Winchie? And I can't even complain of poor health or discomfort of any kind. I don't deserve my good fortune. Other women would envy me." No, they would not. She saw in remembered faces of women friends the same discontent she was hiding in her heart. A woman—a woman grown—craved more than material comfort could give, more than work or play, however interesting, more than motherhood could give—craved that grown-up, equal love without which life was like a wonderful watch with a broken mainspring. She thought of Basil Gallatin again. At least she was more fortunate than he. Suppose she, like him, loved and it were not returned. Then indeed would her heart ache.