Isabelle gave him a curious glance, and then in a hard tone remarked, "Sometimes I think, Vick, that in spite of your experience you are the same soft, sentimental youth you were before it happened."
"Not quite."
"Did you ever regret it, Vick?"
"Yes," he said bravely, "many times; but I am not so sure now that one can really regret anything that is done out of one's full impulse."
"Well,—that was different," Isabelle remarked vaguely. "Did you ever consider, Vick, that marriage is an awful problem for a woman,—any woman who has individuality, who thinks? … A man takes it easily. If it doesn't fit, why he hangs it up in the closet, so to speak, and takes it out just as little as he has to. But a woman,—she must wear it pretty much all of the time—or give it up altogether. It's unfair to the woman. If she wants to be loved, and there are precious few women who don't want a man to love them, don't want that first of all, and her husband hasn't time to bother with love,—what does she get out of marriage? I know what you are going to say! John loves me, when he thinks about it, and I have my child, and I am happily placed, in very comfortable circumstances, and—"
"I wasn't going to say that," Vickers interrupted.
"But," continued Isabelle, with rising intensity, "you know that has nothing to do with happiness…. One might as well be married to a hitching-post as to John. Women simply don't count in his life. Sometimes I wish they did—that he would make me jealous! Give him the railroad and golf and a man to talk to, and he is perfectly happy…. Where do I come in?"
"Where do you put yourself in?"
"As housekeeper," she laughed, the mood breaking. "The Johnstons are coming next week, all eight—or is it nine?—of them. I must go over and see that the place is opened…. They live like tramps, with one servant, but they seem very happy. He is awfully good, but dull,—John is a social lion compared to Steve Johnston. John says he's very clever in his line. And as for Alice, she always was big, but she's become enormous. I don't suppose she ever thinks of anything so frivolous as a waist-line."
"I thought she had a beautiful face."