"I know I'll never think any different, Absalom. You must not suppose that I will."
"Is it somepin you're got ag'in' me?" he asked incredulously, for he knew he was considered a prize. "I'm well-fixed enough, ain't I? I'd make you a good purvider, Tillie. And I don't addict to no bad habits. I don't chew. Nor I don't drink. Nor I don't swear any. The most I ever sayed when I was spited was 'confound it.'"
"It isn't that I have anything against you, Absalom, especially. But—look here, Absalom, if you were a woman, would YOU marry? What does a woman gain?"
Absalom stared at her in the dusky evening light of the high road. To ask of his slow-moving brain that it question the foundations of the universe and wrestle with a social and psychological problem like this made the poor youth dumb with bewilderment.
"Why SHOULD a woman get married?" Tillie repeated.
"That's what a woman's FUR," Absalom found his tongue to say.
"She loses everything and gains nothing."
"She gets kep'," Absalom argued.
"Like the horses. Only not so carefully. No, thank you, Absalom. I can keep myself."
"I'd keep you better 'n your pop keeps you, anyways, Tillie. I'd make you a good purvider."