"Oh, what nonsense! I like to hear people speak their minds. Besides, you mustn't fancy I'm as froom as my father."
"I don't fancy that. Not quite," he laughed. "I know there's some blessed old law or other by which women haven't got the same chance of distinguishing themselves that way as men. I have a vague recollection of saying a prayer thanking God for not having made me a woman."
"Ah, that must have been a long time ago," she said slyly.
"Yes, when I was a boy," he admitted. Then the oddity of the premature thanksgiving struck them both and they laughed.
"You've got a different form provided for you, haven't you?" he said.
"Yes, I have to thank God for having made me according to His will."
"You don't seem satisfied for all that," he said, struck by something in the way she said it.
"How can a woman be satisfied?" she asked, looking up frankly. "She has no voice in her destinies. She must shut her eyes and open her mouth and swallow what it pleases God to send her."
"All right, shut your eyes," he said, and putting his hand over them he gave her a titbit and restored the conversation to a more flippant level.
"You mustn't do that," she said. "Suppose my husband were to see you."