ain, angrily, jealously.

"Yes. My wife is my other self," he replied, quietly.

She stared at him, breathing heavily, then looked out of the window
again. At last she turned to him. She seemed to refer to his invitation.

"Oh, this terrible land! Oh, I couldn't stay here! I'd go insane.
Perhaps I'm going insane, anyway. Don't you think so?"

"No, I think you're a little nervous, that's all."

"Oh! Do you think I'll get my divorce?"

"Certainly, without question."

"Can I wait and go back with you?"

"I shall not return for several days. Perhaps you couldn't bear to wait
in this little town; it's not much like the city."

"Oh, dear! But I can't go about alone. I hate these men, they stare at
me so! I wish I was a man. It's awful to be a woman, don't you think so?
Please don't laugh."

The young lawyer was far from laughing, but this was her only way of
defending herself. These pert, bird-like ways formed her shield against
ridicule and misprision.

He said, slowly, "Yes, it's an awful thing to be a woman, but then it's
an awful responsibility to be a man."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that we are responsible, as the dominant sex, for every tragic,
incomplete woman's life."

"Don't you blame Mrs. Shellberg?" she said, forcing him to a concrete
example with savage swiftness.

"No. She had a poor father and a poor husband, and she must earn her own
living some way."

"She could cook, or nurse, or something like that."

"It isn't easy to find opportunity to cook or nurse. If it were as easy
to earn a living in a pure way as it is in a vicious way, all men would
be rich and virtuous. But what had you planned to do after your
divorce?"

"Oh, I'm going to travel for two years. Then I'll try to settle down."

"What you need is a good husband, and a little cottage where you'd have
to cook your own food--and tend the baby."

"I wouldn't cook for any man living," she broke in, to express her
bitterness that he could so coldly dispose of her future. "Oh, this
terrible train! Can't it go faster? If I'd realized what a trip this
was, I wouldn't have started."

"This is the route you all go," he replied, with grim humor, and his
words pictured a ceaseless stream of divorcees.

She resented his classing her with the rest, but she simply said: "You
despise me, don't you? But what can we do? You can't expect us to live
with men we hate, can you? That would be worse than Mrs. Shellberg."

"No, I don't expect