“Because I am not equal to it.”
“How do you know it? Who told you?”
“You have told me,—by every look and act of yours,—and I’m grateful to you for it.”
“And if I told you now by word that you were fit for it.”
“I shouldn’t believe you.”
“You wouldn’t believe my word?” She did not answer. “I see,” he said presently, “that you doubt me somehow as a man. What is it you think of me?”
“You wouldn’t like to know.”
“Oh, yes, I should.”
“Well, I will tell you. I think you are a tyrant, and that you want a slave, not a wife. You wish to be obeyed. You despise women. I don’t mean their minds,—they’re despicable enough, in most cases, as men’s are,—but their nature.”
“This is news to me,” he said, laughing. “I never knew that I despised women’s nature.”