"The outside world may want you," he replied.
"If the outside world has got on so long without me, it may go on for some time longer. It need not pine to death for want of me."
"Let it perish, for all I care! That is not troubling me. I am thinking about myself."
"Oh, indeed. Tell me what about yourself?"
My husband was silent, with a smile.
I knew his way, and protested at once: "No, no, you are not going to run away from me like that! I want to have this out with you."
"Can one ever finish a subject with words?"
"Do stop speaking in riddles. Tell me…"
"What I want is, that I should have you, and you should have me, more fully in the outside world. That is where we are still in debt to each other."
"Is anything wanting, then, in the love we have here at home?"