"Stop, Challis—stop! Stop on the legal pretext! At what age of the world has man, the strong, scrupled to catch at legal pretexts to secure the betrayal and confusion of woman, the weak? Legal pretexts, mind you, whose iniquity stinks in every legal phrase that relates to her, in every statute that he has framed and she has had no hand in! How many legal pretexts are there in the whole of them that a woman can catch at to her own advantage? One turns up now and again, in a rare conjunction of circumstances, and hey presto!—we are all on the alert to blame the woman who does it."
"You're quite right," said Challis ruefully. "It's melancholy to think how keenly alive one is to other folks' sinfulness when one suffers by it personally; loses one's Chobbles, for instance. I was fond of the young person, you see, Yorick! Besides, there's Mumps. And even Bob she contrives to stint me of. Either that, or the boy drifts away from his sisters."
"You should have thought of all that when you...."
"Made a fool of myself?"
"Quite so. By-the-bye, Challis, have you asked yourself—supposing that you ratify this folly of yours, as I understand you propose to do—what you mean to tell Bob to account for the new order of things?"
"Yes, frequently."
"And have you answered the question?"
"No, I have not."
"Do you see any prospect of answering it?"
"None whatever!"