“Oh, that was quite an accident,” said Clare, laughing. “Besides, I gave you my word to abstain from the militant movement, and you can’t say I have broken the pledge.”
“You have broken a good many other things.”
“What kind of things?” asked Clare. “You aren’t alluding to that window again, are you?”
“You have broken my illusions on married life,” said Herbert, with tragic emphasis.
“Ah,” said Clare, “that is ‘the Great Illusion,’ by the Angel in the House.”
“You have broken my ideals of womanhood.”
“They were false ideals, Herbert,” said Clare very quietly. “It was only a plaster ideal which broke. The real woman is of flesh and blood. The real woman is so much better than the sham. Don’t you think so?”
“It depends on what you call sham,” said Herbert.
“I was a sham until that plaster image of me broke. I indulged in sham sentiment, sham emotion, sham thoughts. Look at me now, since I went outside these four walls and faced the facts of life, and saw other people’s misery besides my own, and the happiness of people with so much more to bear than I had. Look into my eyes, Herbert.”
She smiled at him tenderly, alluringly. “What’s the good?” said Herbert.