I said nothing, having nothing to say. I waited for her to go on, which presently she did do, dreamily, as she peeled her pear.
"Do you know that it was in this place--I suppose in this very room--perhaps at this very table, that her life was spoilt one Christmas Day."
"How--how spoilt?"
It seemed as if my tongue had shrivelled in my mouth.
"What is it that spoils a woman's life?"
"How should I know?"
"I thought that everyone knew what spoils a woman's life--even you cynical bachelors." Cynical bachelors! I was beginning to shiver as if each word she uttered was a piece of ice slipped down my back. "Different people write it different ways, but it's all summed up in the same word in the end--a lover."
"I thought that it was a lover who is supposed to make a woman's life the perfect thing it ought to be."
"He either makes or mars it. In my sister's case he--marred it."
"A woman's life is not so easily spoilt."