“Yes,” she said, with unexpected suddenness. “Robert didn’t like it.”
Mayne slowly raised his head, and their eyes met. He was silent.
“Oh, I know what you’d like to say!” cried Cecily, hurriedly; “but it’s no use arguing about it. Most men regard their wives, so long as they’re in love with them, in an absolutely primitive way—there’s no getting out of it—they do. For every other woman, freedom, individuality, the ‘exercise of her own gifts,’ of course. For a man’s wife, while he loves her, no life but his. She belongs to him, body and soul. He is jealous of every interest in which he is not concerned. And because his love means so much to her, because she can’t realize that one day it may go, a woman yields; she lets all her interests go down the wind; she is what he wants her to be.”
She paused a moment in her rapid speech. Mayne made no sign, and she went on in a voice that shook a little.
“And perhaps, if it lasted so, she would be content. But it doesn’t last. And it’s the woman who’s shipwrecked. Beautiful new countries, full of interest, for him. For her—nothing but the desert island.”
Mayne was still silent. He was following, with a stalk of grass, the distracted movements of a ladybird.
Cecily laughed nervously. “My dear Dick,” she cried, springing to her feet, “I beg your pardon. What a dose of the woman question I’ve given you! It’s the first offence, kind gentleman. It shall not occur again. Come along.”
Mayne had also risen, but he made no sign of moving. “Cecily,” he said, suddenly, “we’re very good friends, aren’t we?”
She looked at him steadily. “Very good friends, Dick.”
“I want you to promise me something.”