"What?"
"All those—dear little—things."
"Women are rum," he declared. "I believe they're always wanting their husbands to propose to them."
"It would be nice," she said seriously.
Osborn laughed a good deal. "A woman's never tired of love-making."
"A married woman doesn't often get the chance."
"A married man doesn't often get the time."
She looked yet again at the actress across the room, and strange echoes of questions stirred in her. Such a woman, she thought, would always make a man find time. How did they do it? What was the real secret of feminine victory, triumphant and deathless? Was it not to keep burning always, night and day, winter and summer, autumn and spring, throughout the seasons, the clear-flamed lamp of romance?
Behind the wife there stood shades, sturdy, greedy, disagreeable shades, and the two-hundred-pound husband always saw them; they were the butcher, the grocer, the milkman, the doctor, the landlord and the tax-collector.
How could she trim her lamp brightly to burn?