you only risk--your
reason."

Barbara stared at her. "That's the very thing I'm afraid of. I'd give
anything for peace of mind. How did you know?"

"Oh, it doesn't call for much astuteness. I don't suppose there's a
married woman in the world in full command of her wits. You've noticed
how foolish most of them are. That's why. It isn't that they were born
foolish. They've simply been addled by enforced adaptation to mates of
lower intelligence. Oh, I'm not scolding. I'm merely stating a
natural, observed, psychological fact. The woman who marries says
good-bye to the orderly working of her faculties. For that she may get
compensations, with which I don't intend to find fault. But
compensations or no, to a clear-thinking woman like----"

"Like yourself, Aunt Marion."

"Very well; like myself, if you will; but to a clear-thinking woman
it's as obvious as daylight that her married sisters are partially
demented. They may not know it; the partially demented never do. And
it's no good telling them, because they don't believe you. I'm only
saying it to you to warn you in advance. If you part with your reason,
it's something to know that you do it of your own free will."

Once more Barbara confined herself to the case in hand. "Still, I
don't believe every man is as trying as Rash Allerton."

"Not in his particular way, perhaps. But if it's not in one way then
it's in another."

"Even he wouldn't be so bad if he could control himself. At the minute
when he's tearing down the house he wants you to tell him that he's
calm."

"If he didn't want you to tell him that it would be something equally
preposterous. There's little to choose between men."

Barbara grew thoughtful. "Still, if people didn't marry the human race
would die out."

"And would there be any harm in that? It's not a danger, of course;
but if it was, would anyone in his senses want to stop it? Looking
round on the human race to-day one can hardly help saying that the
sooner it dies out the better. Since we can't kill it off, it's well
to remember----"

"To remember what, Aunt Marion?"

Miss Walbrook reflected as to how to express herself cautiously.
"To remember that--in marrying--and having children--children who
will have to face the highly probable miseries of the next
generation--Well, I'm glad there'll be no one to reproach me with his
being in the world, either as his mother or his ancestress."

"They say Rash's father and mother didn't wan