“For always,” he said, not answering her, only following the train of thought in his own mind.
“No, not for always,” she said sadly, “Love me really for a week, a day, a year—while the nightingales sing. I would rather have a man’s whole love for one day, than his toleration for years, his agreeable acceptation of my presence.”
“A man usually loves his wife.”
“Does he? Does he? You know that is rubbish. You love me now, and you think you will always. A wife is associated with a man’s disagreeable pleasures, his duty dinners, his dull breakfasts. When he goes to dine at his Colonel’s, or with the man who has influence, and runs the papers, she goes and bores him too. If you were compelled to take the other man’s wife out to dinner you would appreciate the attributes of your own when you returned to her.”
“A man loves his future wife before matrimony. But, Lily, afterwards I think it is your own fault.”
“Mine?” she exclaimed. “Mine—you forget—you—”
“Dearest, I did not mean you. I meant indefinite woman. It will never be your fault.”
She looked at him.
“You apologised in time—I was haughty. Sit there, near, but not too near me.”
He seated himself in a little chair.