"No, I mean to say simply—since you insist—that he speaks the truth, and there are some—even among women—who must know the truth and abide by it."
"Well, thank Heaven," said the man, pulling at his cigar, "that most women are more emotional than intelligent—as Nature meant them to be."
Mrs. Shattuck examined her daintily polished nails, rubbed them carefully on the palm of her hand, as women have a trick of doing, and then polished them on her lace handkerchief, before she said, "Yes, it is a pity that we are not all like that,—a very great pity—for our own sakes. Yet, unluckily, some of us will think."
"But the thinking woman is so rarely logical, so unable to take life impersonally, that Schopenhauer does her no good. He only fills her mind with errors, mistrust, unhappiness."
"You men always argue that way with women—as if life were not the same for us as for you. Pass me the book. I wager that I can open it at random, and that you cannot deny the truth of the first sentence I read."
He passed her the book.
She took it, laid it open carelessly on her knees, bending the covers far back that it might stay open, and she gave her finger tips a final rub with her handkerchief before she looked at the page. She paused a bit after she glanced at it, then picked up the book and read: "'L'homme est par Nature porté à l'inconstance dans l'amour, la femme à la fidelité. L'amour de l'homme baisse d'une façon sensible à partir de l'instant où il a obtenu satisfaction: il semble que toute autre femme ait plus d'attrait que celle qu'il possède.'"
She laid the book down, but she did not look at him.
"Rubbish," was his remark.
"Yes, I know. You men always find it so easy to say 'rubbish' to all natural truths which you prefer not to discuss."