“Mary-Clare, you’ve got me guessing”––there was almost surrender in the tone––“a woman like you doesn’t take the stand you have without reason. I know that. Naturally, 52 I was upset, I spoke too quick. Tell me now in your own way. I’ll try to understand.”
Mary-Clare was taken off guard. Her desire and sore need rushed past caution and carried her to Larry.
She, too, leaned forward, and her lovely eyes were shining. “Oh! I hoped you would try, Larry,” she said. “I know I’m trying and put things in a way that you resent, but I have a great, a true reason, if I could only make you see it.”
“Now, you’re talking sense, Mary-Clare,” Larry spoke boyishly. “Just over-tired, I guess you were; seeing things in the dark. Men know the world better than women; that’s why some things are as they are. I’m not going to press you, Mary-Clare, I’m going to try and help you. You are my wife, aren’t you?”
“Yes, oh! yes, Larry.”
“Well, I’m a man and you’re a woman.”
“Yes, that’s so, Larry.”
Step by step, ridiculous as it might seem, Mary-Clare meant, even now, to keep as close to Larry as she could. He misunderstood; he thought he was winning against her folly.
“Marriage was meant for one thing between man and woman!”
This came out triumphantly. Then Mary-Clare threw back her head and spiritually retreated to her vantage of safety.