He had called her Fanny!
“My wife’s name is Sylvia. She’s pretty and prim and worships her figure. You can imagine what she thinks of mine! She’s always been afraid because of her waistline to have a baby. But before Sylvia came along, there was Sadie. The first love of my youth. She was thirty then. Now she’s fifty. Fat and sentimental, good old maternal Sadie. She’d love to have children. But how can she? She’s so respectable ... she’s so ill-placed in a hard world. She’s been true to me, has Sadie. Sadie envies Sylvia her marriage license ... the chance she has to have a brood of kiddies. Sylvia despises Sadie, is above jealousy (Sadie’s a part of the landscape) and tells herself in her heart what a far better kept-lady she’d have made, what better times she’d have had ... she’d not have been true to me!... if only she were free and immoral like that fat old foolish thing.”
“Why do you tell me all this terrible farce?”
“I want you to know that I know women.”
“How should I know it from that?”
“These misplaced women love me ... they’re my fate.”
“All of your fate?”
“Not all.”
“I don’t know, Mr. Johns, why you should assume my interest in all this....”
He got up. “Fanny, there’s more between us than that.”