‘I suppose it’s to make people careful,’ said Edith, with a laugh.
‘If so, we know that it has always failed, and always will fail; so the sooner such a profitless law is altered the better. Isn’t there some society for getting that kind of reform? I would subscribe fifty pounds a year to help it. Wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes, if I had it to spare,’ replied the other.
Then they both laughed, but Edith the more naturally.
‘Not on my own account, you know,’ she added.
‘It’s because women who are happily married can’t and won’t understand the position of those who are not that there’s so much difficulty in reforming marriage laws.’
‘But I understand you, Amy, and I grieve about you. What you are to do I can’t think.’
‘Oh, it’s easy to see what I shall do. Of course I have no choice really. And I ought to have a choice; that’s the hardship and the wrong of it. Perhaps if I had, I should find a sort of pleasure in sacrificing myself.’
There were some new novels on the table; Amy took up a volume presently, and glanced over a page or two.
‘I don’t know how you can go on reading that sort of stuff, book after book,’ she exclaimed.