"One moment," she repeated. "I've got something to say to this." She rose and stood, her hands moving nervously against her dress, her eyes staring straight into her husband's face. "It's quite right that I was kissing Harry, but it isn't right that I love him. I don't love him a bit. I don't love anybody. I'm just sick of men. I've been sick of them a long time. It was just because I didn't feel Harry was a man at all that I let him kiss me. A dog or a baby would have done just as well.... I don't care what you do. You can turn me out. I want to be turned out. I want to be free, I want to be with women, and work on my own, and do sensible things, and have my own life with no men in it.... No men in it anywhere. I've been wanting this for years; ever since the war started. The world's just run for men and you think you're so important that you're everything. But you're not. Not to a woman of my age who's been through it all, and hasn't children. What have I been sitting at home for, waiting for you, seeing after your food, keeping you in a good temper, looking after you? Why should I? I'm myself—not half of you. And Harry too. He was a nice boy at first. But suddenly he wants me to love him, to belong to him, to follow him. Why should I, a boy like that? I want to be with other women, women who understand me, women who know how I feel, women who have their own world and their own life, and are independent of men altogether.... I've wanted to go for months—and now I'm going."
She moved towards the door. The absurdity of what she had said kept him standing there in front of her. She wanted only women! Oh, of course, that was only bluff, put up to carry off a difficult situation.
People did not want their own sex—a man for a woman, a woman for a man. That was the way the world went, and it was right that it should be so.
Nevertheless, her words had had behind them a strange ring of conviction. He stared at her in his round, puzzled, solid way. He did not move from where he was, and she could not reach the door without brushing against him, so she also stayed.
Another mood came to her. "Oh! I'm so sorry ..." she said. "I've done very wrong to hurt you. You've always done your very best, but it was over—you and I—so long ago. Long, long before Lance was killed!"
"Over?" he repeated.
"Yes, over—men never know unless it's worth some woman's while to tell them."
Harry's voice broke in.
"I'd better go.... I ought to ... I mustn't...." He murmured something more, but they neither of them noticed him. They were intent upon one another. He left the room.
Mr. Nix stared desolately around him. "I don't know what to do," he repeated to himself. "I don't know what to do."