"I am afraid you are cast for the devil," said Nadine candidly. "Berts is the world because he thinks he is cynical. And Jack is the flesh—"
"Because he is so thin?"
"Partly. But also because he is so rich."
Seymour turned the key on his jade. This interested him much more. But he had to make further inquiries.
"If every girl wanted four husbands," he said, "there wouldn't be enough men to go round."
"Round what?" asked Nadine, still entirely absorbed in what she was thinking.
"Round the marriageable females. Or does your plan include poly-womany, whatever the word is, for men?"
"But of course. There are such lots of bachelors who would marry if they could have two or three wives, just as there are such lots of girls who would marry if they could have two or three husbands. All those laws about 'one man, one wife' were made by ordinary people for ordinary people. And ordinary people are in the majority. There ought to be a small county set apart for ridiculous people, with a rabbit fence all round it, and any one who could be certified to be ridiculous in his tastes should be allowed to go and live there unmolested. That would be much better than your plan of going to the Sahara with Antoinette. You would have to get five householders to certify you as ridiculous, in order to obtain admission. Then you would do what you chose within the rabbit fence, but when you wanted to be what they call sensible again you would come out, and be bound to behave like anybody else, as long as you were out, under penalty of not being admitted again."
Seymour considered this.
"There's a lot in it," he said, "and there would be a lot of people in the rabbit fence. I should go there to-morrow and never come out at all. But a smaller county would be no use. I should start with Kent, not Rutlandshire, and be prepared to migrate to Yorkshire. I accept the position of one of your husbands."