“But you inquired!”
“I took his word.”
Her eyes had filled. “He wouldn’t have inquired!” she said. “But you haven’t answered me. Will you let me go away? I know how irregular it is of me to ask it—”
“It is irregular.”
“But I do ask it! Domestic laws should be made according to temperaments, which should be classified. If people are at all peculiar in character they have to suffer from the very rules that produce comfort in others! … Will you let me?”
“But we married—”
“What is the use of thinking of laws and ordinances,” she burst out, “if they make you miserable when you know you are committing no sin?”
“But you are committing a sin in not liking me.”
“I do like you! But I didn’t reflect it would be—that it would be so much more than that… For a man and woman to live on intimate terms when one feels as I do is adultery, in any circumstances, however legal. There—I’ve said it! … Will you let me, Richard?”
“You distress me, Susanna, by such importunity!”