"Well, my experience," I told her, "is that the men give as much love as the women—"
She looked at me. "What do you mean?"
"Love costs them a lot."
"In what way?"
"They work for us. Now there's Billy's grocery store. If Billy didn't have me, he'd be doing things that he likes better. You wouldn't believe it, but Billy wanted to study law, but it meant years of hard work before he could make a cent, and he and I would have wasted our youth in waiting—and so he went into business—and that's a big thing for a man to do for a woman—to give up a future that he has hoped for—and that's why I feel that I can't do enough for Billy—"
"I don't see why you should look at it in that way," she said, and her eyes were big and bright. "Women are queens, and they honor men when they marry them—"
"If women are queens," I told her, "men are kings—Billy honored me—"
She smiled at me. "Oh, you blessed dear—" she said, and all of a sudden she came over and knelt beside me. "What would you think of a man who married a woman whom the world called beautiful and brilliant, and whom—whom princes wanted to marry—And he was a very plain man, except that he had a lot of money—millions and millions—and after he married the woman whom he had said that he worshiped, he wanted to make just an every-day wife of her. He wanted her to stay at home and look after his house. He told her one night that it would be a great happiness for him if he could come in and find her warming—his slippers. And he said that his ideal of a woman was one who—who—held a child in her arms—"
I looked down at her. "Well, right in the beginning," I said, "I should like to know if the woman loved the man—"
She stared at me and then she stood up. "If she did, what then? She had not married to be—his slave—"