"So it does, doesn't it?" said Osborn despondently.
Marie looked at him steadily. Just as she wanted to scream at him in the night, so she now longed to cry: "It's harder on me than you! Do you think I don't want ever to go out? Do you think I don't often long to go into the West End and look at the shops, or do a matinée with mother or Julia, and come back refreshed?"
But with the prudence of her mother's daughter she restrained herself.
"Day in, day out, are we always to live the life domestic pure and simple?" Osborn demanded.
For answer she shrugged her shoulders. Osborn thought her strangely nonchalant, almost contemptuous.
"Well, I, for one, damned well won't do it," he said, rising from the table.
"But I must," Marie replied in a level voice.
It was Osborn's turn to look at her; he wondered just what she meant by it.
"Well," he asked, "I can't help it, can I?"
"Neither can I," said Marie.