She set them together and opened her lips to show him all the gleamy whiteness between.
"I spent ten pounds on them, having them filled and cleaned and polished; I go regularly to the dentist now. And my hands, have you noticed them?"
Osborn met her question by a dead silence.
"They're as they used to be again. And I've done it all in this year you've been away. And there's another thing—it occurred to me the other day when I was wondering what really made all the difference—there's not been a cross word or a grumble in this flat for twelve months. That's happiness. Heavens! That keeps women young!"
She stopped and thought, and continued slowly:
"Marriage is funny. It's a thing men can't bear unless it's gilded. And they vent their intolerance. Do you know that before you went away—for four years—I scarcely ever expected you to say loving or civil things. Before you went out in the mornings you shouted for the breakfast, and I was hurrying all I could; and you grumbled if the children made a noise. And when you came in, if dinner wasn't ready or right, you grumbled at that again. And in the week-ends the kids dared hardly play, and I was buffer all the time between you and them. It's just what happens in thousands of homes, of course."
"This exaggeration—"
"Ah, it isn't. It sounds bad, but it isn't so very. It's rather ordinary. And, Osborn, do you remember when I had to ask you for money—?"
She looked at him freezingly. "Do you think a woman who's been begged and cajoled and petted into marrying a man enjoys creeping and crawling to him for odd shillings for household expenses? Do men think we enjoy it or do it wilfully, that they grudge it so? We can't help it."
"Where's all this harangue—"