He waited for Nancy’s reply, but she kept silence.
‘You are still dissatisfied?’
She looked up, and commanded her features to the expression which makes whatever woman lovely—that of rational acquiescence. On the faces of most women such look is never seen.
‘No, I am content. You are working hard, and I won’t make it harder for you.’
‘Speak always like that!’ Tarrant’s face was radiant. ‘That’s the kind of thing that binds man to woman, body and soul. With the memory of that look and speech, would it be possible for me to slight you in my life apart? It makes you my friend; and the word friend is better to my ear than wife. A man’s wife is more often than not his enemy. Harvey Munden was telling me of a poor devil of an author who daren’t be out after ten at night because of the fool-fury waiting for him at home.’
Nancy laughed.
‘I suppose she can’t trust him.’
‘And suppose she can’t? What is the value of nominal fidelity, secured by mutual degradation such as that? A rational woman would infinitely rather have a husband who was often unfaithful to her than keep him faithful by such means. Husband and wife should interfere with each other not a jot more than two friends of the same sex living together. If a man, under such circumstances, worried his friend’s life out by petty prying, he would get his head punched. A wife has no more justification in worrying her husband with jealousies.’
‘How if it were the wife that excited suspicion?’ asked Nancy.
‘Infidelity in a woman is much worse than in a man. If a man really suspects his wife, he must leave her, that’s all; then let her justify herself if she can.’