Monica, silent for a brief space, looked fixedly before her, her features all but expressionless.
“Yet even with Mr. Bevis,” she said at length, “you don’t make friends. That is the fault in you which causes all this trouble. You haven’t a sociable spirit. Your dislike of Mr. Barfoot only means that you don’t know him, and don’t wish to. And you are completely wrong in your judgment of him. I have every reason for being sure that you are wrong.”
“Of course you think so. In your ignorance of the world—”
“Which you think very proper in a woman,” she interposed caustically.
“Yes, I do! That kind of knowledge is harmful to a woman.”
“Then, please, how is she to judge her acquaintances?”
“A married woman must accept her husband’s opinion, at all events about men.” He plunged on into the ancient quagmire. “A man may know with impunity what is injurious if it enters a woman’s mind.”
“I don’t believe that. I can’t and won’t believe it.”
He made a gesture of despair.
“We differ hopelessly. It was all very well to discuss these things when you could do so in a friendly spirit. Now you say whatever you know will irritate me, and you say it on purpose to irritate me.”