"Did she tell the young man that that was the reason?"
"No."
"Why?"
"Because—because I fancy he was the kind of man who, if he had known the real reason, would have persisted in staying single on her account."
"And why not? Men like that are rare."
"Well, he—she told me that he was the sort of man who had no idea of looking after himself, or making himself comfortable—the sort of man who really needed a wife. It would have been cruel not to let him go. She might have had to keep him waiting twenty years, and she couldn't bear to think of him living in discomfort and loneliness all that time; so—"
"So she gave him another reason?"
"Yes."
"What reason?"
"Oh, the reason a girl usually gives nowadays. Other interests—freedom to live one's own life—and so on. You know."