Then I seated myself. "By all means, let us be
reasonable," said I. "Now, let me explain my position. I have heard you and
your friends discussing the views of marriage you've just been expressing.
Their views may be right, may be more civilized, more 'advanced' than mine.
No matter. They are not mine. I hold by the old standards--and you are
my wife--mine. Do you understand?" All this as tranquilly as if we were
discussing fair weather. "And you will live up to the obligation which the
marriage service has put upon you."
She might have been a marble statue pedestaled in that window seat.
"You married me of your own free will--for you could have protested to
the preacher and he would have sustained you. You tacitly put certain
conditions on our marriage. I assented to them. I have respected them.
I shall continue to respect them. But--when you married me, you didn't
marry a dawdling dude chattering 'advanced ideas' with his head full of
libertinism. You married a man. And that man is your husband."
I waited, but she made no comment--not even by gesture or movement. She
simply sat, her hands interlaced in her lap, her eyes straight upon mine.
"You say let us be reasonable," I went on.
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