“I'm not so sure,” she answered, meditatively, “that it is nonsense. It would be quite easy to fall in love with him. Easier than you imagine. curiously. Would you care?” she added.
“Care!” he cried; “of course I'd care. What kind of rot are you talking?”
“Why would you care?”
“Why? What a darned idiotic question—”
“It's not really so idiotic as you think it is,” she said. “Suppose I allowed Mr. Brent to make love to me, as he's very willing to do, would you be sufficiently interested to compete.”
“To what?”
“To compete.”
“But—but we're married.”
She laid her hand upon her knee and glanced down at it.
“It never occurred to me until lately,” she said, “how absurd is the belief men still hold in these days that a wedding-ring absolves them forever from any effort on their part to retain their wives' affections. They regard the ring very much as a ball and chain, or a hobble to prevent the women from running away, that they may catch them whenever they may desire—which isn't often. Am I not right?”