Lady B.—“Ah! that is better (a few moments’ silence). By the bye, have you seen Lady G. lately? Poor little woman! is she not an inconsolable widow?...”
La Comtesse.—“I saw her last Tuesday. I found her better ... she was beginning to be a little more reasonable.”
Lady B.—“I saw her the day after Lord G.’s death. She was in a pitiable state.”
La Comtesse.—“So did I; but that was nothing ... it was on the day itself that you should have seen her.... She was beside herself ... she had completely lost her reason.... You should have heard her reciting the litany of her husband’s good qualities. What qualities, what virtues people discover in their dead relatives, to be sure: did it never strike you so?... They say Lord G. has left her all his fortune, at least all that he could leave her.... It is no light matter being left a widow in England: ... your husbands are very shrewd, do you know! English wives have a great interest in taking every care of their husbands.”
Lady B.—“Such is not Lady G.’s case, however. Her husband leaves her his fortune on condition she remains a widow. If she re-marries, she loses all her rights.”
La Comtesse.—“Well, well, that is tyranny, or I never understood the word. Not content with having been a despot all his life, he must continue after his death to make his wife feel an authority that he can only exercise by proxy. There! really, it is only in England that you find husbands of that stamp.”
Lady B.—“I don’t agree with you. I think a husband shows his wisdom in protecting his wife against the fortune-hunters that might be attracted by her money.”
La Comtesse.—“But a woman is not a baby that does not know one thing from another ... and if your husbands did not treat you as minors....”
Lady B.—“Besides, after all, you must admit that if a man loves his wife, it is not pleasant for him to think that there is perhaps an individual who is only waiting for him to die, in order to marry his widow and enjoy comfortably a fortune that has perhaps cost him great trouble to amass.”
La Comtesse.—“I do not admit any such injunctions. A woman is capable of devotion and fidelity. But as for imposing upon her a sacrifice for which she is to be paid, I call it insulting. I should never feel anything but contempt for the memory of a husband who had treated me in such a way.... I should marry again and have done with him and his money.”