"Particularize."
"Take novel-writing. Men sneer at the woman-novelist—say that she cannot draw a man to the life."
"It's largely true."
"What's the reason? Because one can't draw to any satisfaction without models to base on. Because a man never lets a woman into his innermost thoughts."
"That argument ought to cut both ways."
"It doesn't. Women give up their innermost secrets to men because——Well, because woman is the sex that gives and man the sex that takes. It's been bred in and in through the whole history of civilization."
"Woman the sex that gives? That reverses the usual idea."
"You're thinking of the things that don't matter—money, jewels, dress, mansions, servants. Those are the cheap things that man gives in return for the gifts that are priceless."
Rivière shook his head. "You argue only from a limited knowledge of the world. There are plenty of women who take everything—everything—and give nothing in return. Perhaps you don't know such women. I do."
"You mean women of the underworld? They are as men make them."