"Ah, well, I didn't marry Martin!" his wife reminded him quickly. "I didn't promise to love and honour Martin in sickness and health, for richer for poorer, for better for worse--by George!" Alix interrupted herself, in her boyish way, "those are terrific words, you know. And a promise is a promise!"
"And even for infidelity, you don't believe people ought to separate?" Cherry asked.
"Nonsense!" Peter said.
"But you said--that Martin never--"
"No, I'm not speaking of Martin now!"
"Well, wouldn't that come under 'worser'?" Alix asked.
"But, my child," Peter expostulated kindly, "my dear benighted wife--there is such a thing as a soul--a mind--a personality! To be tied to a--well, to a coarsening influence day after day is living death! It is worse than any bodily discomfort--"
"I don't see it!" Alix persisted. "I think there's a lot of nonsense talked about the fammy oncompreezy--but it seems to me that if you have a home and meals and books and friends and the country to walk in, you--"
"Oh, Heavens, Alix, you don't know what you're talking about!" Cherry interrupted her, impatiently. "Let Peter here go off with some chorus girl, and see how long you--"
"It's all very well in books," Alix interrupted her sister in turn. "But in real life I don't believe a woman ever bothers to think whether her husband ever murmurs her name in dreams or not. I know I take Peter as much for granted as I do Tamalpais; if he ever leaped from the track, and stole or got drunk or wandered off after some petticoat, I'd FIX him! I'd be furious, but I don't see myself leaving him."