"I was wondering, Cosimo, why--why you don't marry Dorothy."
Cosimo dropped his end of the casement-cloth and reached for a needle with black thread in it. He leaned forward.
"Here, let me stitch that binding while I think of it.... What's that? Marry Dorothy?... Why, you don't suppose Dorothy would have me, do you? Because I don't."
Of course, Cosimo was far too well-bred to say that he wouldn't have Dorothy. Still, she guessed what he meant. Dorothy (he seemed to say) was a perfect dear, but not in that way. Nevertheless, Amory, who sat in the light and could see herself ever so tiny in Cosimo's black-coffee-coloured eyes, looked a little doubtful, and said, "Are you quite sure of that?"
"Perfectly sure," Cosimo repeated, with the same beautiful tact. "Don't suppose she'd look at me if there wasn't another man in London. Besides, if I wanted to be absurd, I might ask you why _you_ don't marry Walter!"
Amory straightened her back and the pretty bluebell-stalk of her neck. She gave a rich little laugh.
"Oh, just at present I'm having enough of marriage to last me for some time to come.... Cosimo," she added, in impressive tones, "Aunt Jerry's--_awful_!"
"How, awful? (Just pull the edge round a bit, will you?")
"Ugh!... But you don't know her: I'll take you round and introduce you: then you'll see for yourself. What about next Wednesday? or no, I'd better have them here.... Really it seems to me to amount to a public gloating? Their engagement was announced in the 'Times,' and ever since they've had nothing but advertisements--advertisements for wedding-cakes, dresses, veils, flowers, furniture, houses, and I don't know what not. The most private things--you wouldn't believe! It's as if every tradesman in London was looking at them as those shopmen looked at us when we bought the bed! But the moment _I_ ask a perfectly plain question, oh, the outraged modesty!... And what do you think her latest is? She hopes that if there are any children at all they'll be boys! Boys! Think of it!"
"Ah, the Feminist Movement was bound to tell," said Cosimo. "If we're doing nothing else, we're driving the reactionaries into the opposite camp and making them declare themselves."
"Think, my dear! I'm quite sure. We're driving them to their last defence. They know that woman's man's equal really, and that's why they're afraid. Why, look at your own case. You needn't go further than that. What's the good of theorizing when one knows? Take the chromosome. If woman's got one and man hasn't, then she has something he hasn't, and is actually his superior. You've a chromosome and I haven't, and look at us.... Yes, that's why the stick-in-the-muds nowadays all want boys. The female disability's going to be removed. You're removing it in your work; the advance-guard are removing it by having girls. It's all right as long as we know who's for us and who's against us. I don't blame your aunt for a single moment. I'm sorry for her, but that's a different thing."