good family--altogether your social equal, in fact, quite the sort of
woman it became you to marry. I pleased you--and I loved you."

"Thank you, my dear," he said. "In ten years, I doubt if you have ever
made so frank a declaration as that--in words." He was wondering, if,
after all, she were going to develop into an emotional woman, and his
heart gave a quick leap at the very thought--for there are hours when
a woman who runs too much to head has a man at a cruel disadvantage.

"Things are so much harder, so much more complex for a woman," she
went on.

"For the protection of the community?"

"Perhaps. Still, it is not always pleasant to be a woman,--and yet
think; a woman whose reason has been mistakenly developed at the
expense of her capacity to enjoy being a woman, and who is forced at
the same time to encounter the laws of Nature, and pay at the same
time, the penalty of being a woman, and the penalty of knowledge. For,
just so surely as we live, we must encounter love.--"

"You might take it out," interrupted the husband, "in feeling
flattered that it takes so much to conquer such as you."

"So we might, but that, once conquered, neither man nor Nature has any
further use for us, and regret, like art, is long. Not even you can
deny," she exclaimed, sitting up in some excitement, and letting her
cushions fall in a mess all about her, "that life is very unfair to
women."