“They very likely will do so, if they make such an absurd start,” Algitha declared.
“And if they do?”
“Then, if the sentiment stands test and trial, and proves genuine, and not a silly freak, the fact ought to be frankly faced. Husband and wife have no business to go on keeping up a bond that has become false and irksome.”
Miss Temperley broke into protest. “But surely you don’t mean to defend such faithlessness.”
Algitha would not admit that it was faithlessness. She said it was mere honesty. She could see nothing inherently wrong in falling in love genuinely after one arrived at years of discretion. She thought it inherently idiotic, and worse, to make a choice that ought to be for life, at years of indiscretion. Still, people were idiotic, and that must be considered, as well as all the other facts, such as the difficulty of really knowing each other before marriage, owing to social arrangements, and also owing to the training, which made men and women always pose so ridiculously towards one another, pretending to be something that they were not.
“Well done, Algitha,” cried Ernest, laughing; “I like to hear you speak out. Now tell me frankly: supposing you married quite young, before you had had much experience; supposing you afterwards found that you and your husband had both been deceiving yourselves and each other, unconsciously perhaps; and suppose, when more fully awakened and developed, you met another fellow and fell in love with him genuinely, what would you do?”
“Oh, she would just mention it to her husband casually,” Fred interposed with a chuckle, “and disappear.”
“I should certainly not go through terrific emotions and self-accusations, and think the end of the world had come,” said Algitha serenely. “I should calmly face the situation.”
“Calmly! She by supposition being madly in love!” ejaculated Fred, with a chuckle.
“Calmly,” repeated Algitha. “And I should consider carefully what would be best for all concerned. If I decided, after mature consideration and self-testing, that I ought to leave my husband, I should leave him, as I should hope he would leave me, in similar circumstances. That is my idea of right.”