“Everything on God’s earth in it except a piano and a book.”

This reminded Marie Louise of the books she had read on ship-building, and she asked if she might borrow them. Polly made a woeful face at this.

“My dear! When a woman starts to reading up on a subject a man is interested in, she’s lost––and so is he. Beware of it, my dear.”

Tom demurred: “Go right on, Marie Louise, so that you can take an intelligent interest in what your husband is working on.”

“My husband!” said Marie Louise. “Aren’t you both a trifle premature?”

Polly went glibly on: “Don’t listen to Tom, my dear. What does he know about what a man wants his wife to take an intelligent interest in? Once a woman knows about her husband’s business, he’s finished with her and ready for the next. Tom’s been trying to tell me for ten years what he’s working at, and I haven’t the faintest idea yet. It always gives him something to hope for. When he comes home of evenings he can always say, ‘Perhaps to-night’s the night when she’ll listen.’ But once you listen intelligently and really understand, he’s through with you, and he’ll quit you for some pink-cheeked ignoramus who hasn’t heard about it yet.”

Marie Louise, being a woman, knew how to get her message 156 to another woman; the way seems to be to talk right through her talk. The acute creatures have ears to hear with and mouths to talk with, and they apparently find no difficulty in using both at the same time. Somewhere along about the middle of Polly’s discourse Marie Louise began to answer it before it was finished. Why should she wait when she knew what was coming? So she said contemporaneously and covocally:

“But I’m not going to marry a ship-builder, my dear. Don’t be absurd! I’m not planning to take an intelligent interest in Mr. Davidge’s business. I’m planning to take an intelligent interest in my own. I’m going to be a ship-builder myself, and I want to learn the A B C’s.”

They finished that argument at the same time and went on together down the next stretch in a perfect team:

"Oh, well of course, if that’s the case," asserted Polly, "then you’re quite crazy––unless you’re simply hunting for a new sensation. And on that score I’ll admit that it sounds rather interesting. I may take a whack at it myself. I’m quite fed up on bandages and that sort of thing. Get me a job in the same factory or whatever they call it. Will you?" “Mr. Davidge tells me,” Marie Louise explained, “that women are needed in ship-building, and that anybody can learn. In fact, everybody has to, anyway; so I’ve got as good a chance as a man. I’m as strong as a horse. Fine! Come along, and we’ll build a U-boat chaser together. Mr. Davidge would be delighted to have you, I’m sure.”