'You being so Liberal,' she went on with faint mockery, 'you're the very one to introduce the measure' (he shrank visibly, and seemed about to remind her of her pledge). 'It shall ordain,' she went on, 'that those who have found satisfactory husbands or wives are to rest content with their good fortune, and not be so greedy as to insist on having the children, too.'
'Oh!' His gravity relaxed.
'But, on the other hand, all the lonely women, the widows and spinsters, who haven't got anything else, they shall have the children.'
'I won't go so far as that,' he laughed, boundlessly relieved that the conversation was not taking the strenuous turn he for a moment feared. 'But I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll support a measure that shall make an allowance of one child to every single woman the proper and accepted arrangement. No questions asked, and no disgrace.'
'Disgrace!' she echoed, smiling. 'On the contrary, it should be the woman's title to honour! She should be given a beautiful Order like yours for service to the State.'
'Ah, yes! But, what then would we talk about?'
She had turned away definitely this time.
'Well,' said Borrodaile, a little mocking, 'what is it?'
'I don't know,' she answered. 'I don't know what it is that seizes hold of me after I've been chattering like this for an hour or more.'