"I don't see what that has to do with it."
"But it has everything to do with it. A wife should obey, and no woman obeys unless she fears. The one thing man has to do when he marries is to demand obedience, and until he has mastered the woman he gets none."
"From the little experience I have, a woman is a difficult thing to master."
"Everything can be mastered," replied Romanoff. "It sometimes requires patience, I'll admit, but it can always be done. Besides, a woman never respects her husband until he's mastered her. Find me a man who has not mastered his wife, and I'll show you a man whose wife despises him. Of course, every woman strives for mastery, but in her heart of hearts she's sorry if she gets it. If I ever married——" He ceased speaking.
"Yes; if you married?"
"I'd have obedience, obedience, obedience," and Romanoff repeated the word with increasing emphasis. "As you say, it might be difficult, but it can always be obtained."
"How?"
"Of course, if you go among the lower orders of people, the man obtains his wife's obedience by brute force. If she opposes him he knocks her down, thrashes her. But as you rise in the scale of humanity, the methods are different. The educated, cultured man never loses his temper, seldom utters an angry word. He may be a little sarcastic, perhaps, but nothing more. But he never yields. The wife cries, pleads, protests, goes into hysterics perhaps, threatens, but he never yields. He is polite, cold, cruel if you like, but he never shows a sign of weakness, and in the end he's master. And mastery is one of the great joys of life."
"You think so?"
"I'm sure of it."