"Think so?"
"What if Julie has made history of a few husbands? At least, she's been honest about her changes of heart; when she tired of one, she got rid of him legally before taking on another. I call that more decent treatment than most men give their wives."
"Never having had a wife, can't argue."
"Oh, you sound more like Bel every minute! Do come along."
All at once her succès had evaporated into thin air, the flavour of it, that had been so sweet, had gone flat, like champagne too long uncorked. And all (she thought) because Dobbin with his stupid prejudices had reminded her of Bel!
It began to seem as if there might have been more truth than she had guessed in her assertion that men were all alike in their attitude toward women, toward their wives and toward—the others.
But if that were so (surely she wasn't the first to glimpse an immortal truth) why did women ever marry?
And why, in the name of reason! having once worried through the ordeal of having a husband, did any woman ever repeat an experiment which experience should have taught her was predestined to prove a failure?
She emerged from a brown study to find herself in the car, with Dobbin at her side watching her thoughtfully.
"Cross with me, Cinda?"