"Oh! Do you think I'll get my divorce?"
"Certainly, without question."
"Can I wait and go back with you?"
"I shall not return for several days. Perhaps you couldn't bear to wait in this little town; it's not much like the city."
"Oh, dear! But I can't go about alone. I hate these men, they stare at me so! I wish I was a man. It's awful to be a woman, don't you think so? Please don't laugh."
The young lawyer was far from laughing, but this was her only way of defending herself. These pert, bird-like ways formed her shield against ridicule and misprision.
He said, slowly, "Yes, it's an awful thing to be a woman, but then it's an awful responsibility to be a man."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that we are responsible, as the dominant sex, for every tragic, incomplete woman's life."
"Don't you blame Mrs. Shellberg?" she said, forcing him to a concrete example with savage swiftness.