"And you've got these rooms to keep straight. A good many women if they thought they'd got to tidy up two rooms every day would grumble at the amount of labour, because it took up so much of their time."
"Yes; but they'd do it."
"Probably they'd have to."
"And then they wouldn't be lonely."
"Quite so. Isn't that what I say?"
"Yes; but don't you forget one thing?"
"What's that?"
"They'd be doing it for some one else. They wouldn't be doing it for themselves. And don't you think they get the impetus to do it from that?"
She leant forward—no sign of triumph in her face—and watched his eyes. She knew he could not reply to that. He knew it too. He pulled strenuously at his cigarette, then flung it into the empty fireplace.
"Then what is your point?" he asked firmly. He beat around no bushes. That was not the nature of him. This was a difficulty. He faced it. This was the scene she had deftly been leading up to. Let her have it out and he would tell her straight, once and for all. "What is your point?" he repeated. "You want me to come back—go through the same business all over again?"