"No fair. You've decided on your Russian," remarked Dodo, turning a page.
"Mother-of-pearl! I should say not! I don't know why I never seem to find a man I want to marry—" she went on, plaintively. "One comes along, and I think,—well, maybe this one,—and then—"
They laughed.
"No, really, I mean it." She sat up, the fire-light on her pretty, serious face and fluffy hair. "I'd like to get married. I want a lovely home and children, as much as anybody. And there've been—well, you girls know. But always there's something I can't stand about them. Nicolai, now—he has just the kind of mind I like. He's brilliant and witty, and he's radical. But I couldn't live with his table manners! Oh, I know I ought to be above that. But when I think,—three times a day, hearing him eat his soup—Oh, why don't radical men ever have good table manners? I'm radical, and I have."
"Oh, Marian, you're too funny!"
"The real reason you don't marry is the reason none of us'll marry, except perhaps Sara," said Anne.
Sara's defensive cry was covered by Helen's, "What's that, Anne?"
"Well, what's the use? We don't need husbands. We need wives. Some one to stay at home and do the dishes and fluff up the pillows and hold our hands when we come home tired. And you wouldn't marry a man who'd do it, so there you are."
"Oh, rats, Anne!"
"All right, Dodo-dear. But I don't see you marrying Jim."