She clasped her hands in a kind of worried desperation.
“Oh, why will you go on talking like this!” she exclaimed. “I want nothing—I need no protection from anybody! I could make my own living by myself if I were driven to it,—and I would rather be left utterly alone in the world than to marry a man I did not love!”
The Philosopher struck a fusee and tried to light his pipe but failed—it was too tightly packed.
“Love again!” he commented. “You think of nothing else! I’ve told you often that what you accept as ‘love’ is mere sentiment. For example, take me,—I have a great affection for you,—so great that I have asked you to marry me,—but the very variable emotion which boys and girls call ‘love’ doesn’t move me a jot. I don’t believe in it. Out of a hundred couples who marry for ‘love’ ninety-nine of them regret their folly before the honeymoon is over!”
She was silent. He went on pleasantly—
“All the old novels used to end in the union of the hero and the heroine who were supposed to ‘live happy ever after.’ We know now that they don’t live happy ever after. That bubble of illusion is broken. The common conclusion according to hard fact is that they live unhappy ever after! There are exceptions of course—but exceptions prove the rule. A really fortunate marriage is one where the contracting parties are good friends—without any sentiment. This sort of sensible people go jogging along comfortably and often celebrate their ‘Golden Wedding,’ whereas the silly ‘love’ business usually ends in the divorce court. Do you follow my line of argument?”
She was watching his futile efforts to light his pipe.
“Quite!” she said, and a tiny smile uplifted the corners of her mouth. “It’s quite easy to follow!—much easier than to light a pipe when the bowl is crammed too full! Let me do it for you!”
She took the briar from his unresisting hand and deftly loosened the tobacco with the point of her embroidery scissors, shaking some of it into the fireplace, whereat he groaned.
“What a waste!” he commented. “So like a woman! To throw away what she doesn’t want—”