"Mrs. De Castro has told me. We shall be glad to come out."
"You, I know, do not approve of marriages made through divorce," continued Kimberly, bluntly.
"No, nor do you," returned the doctor. "Not as a general proposition. In this case, frankly, I look on it as the most fortunate thing that has happened in the Kimberly family since your own mother married into it."
"She was a Whitney," muttered Kimberly, leaning back and lifting his chest as he often did when talking. "Arthur De Castro has a strain of that blood. He has all her refinement. The Kimberlys are brutes.
"MacBirney," he went on abruptly, "complained to McCrea yesterday--among other things that he wants to quarrel about--that I had broken up his home. I have not; I think you know that."
"A man came to me the other day"--the doctor laid aside his book--"to say he was going to stand on his 'rights' and sue for alienation a man who had run off with his wife. He asked me what I thought of it. 'I suppose you want my honest opinion,' I replied. 'Yet I am afraid it won't comfort you much. What "rights" have you established in your marriage that anybody is bound to respect?' He looked at me astonished. 'The rights of a husband,' he answered. 'Doesn't the law, doesn't society give them to me?' 'A man that asks equity from society,' said I, 'ought to come into court with clean hands.' I should like to know whose hands are cleaner than mine,' he replied, 'I married, made a home for my wife and supported her.'"
Kimberly leaning further back let his chin sink on his breast, but his eyes shining under his black brows showed that he followed the story.
"'But where are the fruits of your marriage?' I asked," continued the doctor, narrating. "'Don't stare at me--where are the children? How have you lived with your wife? As nature and law and society intended you should--or as a mere paramour? Children would have protected your wife as a woman; the care of children would have filled her life and turned her mind from the distraction of listening to another man. Why didn't you make a wife and mother of the woman you married instead of a creature? In that case you might have pleaded "rights." But you thought you could beat the game; and the game has beaten you. You thought you could take the indulgence of marriage without its responsibilities. Either you debased your wife to your level or allowed her to debase you to hers. Don't talk about "rights," you haven't any.'"
Hamilton ceased.
"What did the fellow say?" asked Kimberly.