“No wives in England? He—he was making fun of you.”
“He was not making fun of me. He has told me all my life. When I asked him why they burned my mother, he said because she was his wife. He is an Englishman. In England they have no wives.”
I had a glimpse of the confusion which was in her mind. But at that moment I was incapable of straightening out the evil.
“Your—your father’s was a peculiar case. There are wives in England.”
“Is that true?”
She thrust her face close to mine. She was terrifically in earnest.
“It is perfectly true. They abound.”
“Then I will not go to England.”
“But—Susie!—you’ve got hold of the wrong end of the stick. In—in England a wife’s the man’s superior.”
“It’s a lie. See how you stammer. You cannot lie like my father with an even tongue. A wife is her husband’s slave. At his bidding she fetches and she carries. He beats her as he beats his dog. When she grows old he takes another. And she dies.”