"I don't know about that," said Stainton; "although I believe that I have seen some such figures given somewhere, but I am clear on one point: the man that treats his wife badly ought not to be allowed the chance to have a wife any longer." He looked at Muriel, seated at his side; he smiled and patted her hand as it lay on the arm of her chair. "Don't you think so, dear?" he asked.
"Of course I do," said she. "Don't you, Captain von Klausen?"
"I am of the religion of my country," he said.
"Eh?" said Stainton. "Oh, I beg your pardon."
"Not at all. Please." Von Klausen waived religious immunity. "I govern myself one way, but I do not object to hear the reasons why other people should choose other ways. Your way--your American way of divorce--is one of the peculiarities of your great nation, and so I studied it much while I lived there. If you permit, sir, to say it: the figures do not well bear out the boast that the American husband is the best husband. So, Mrs. Stainton?"
"But he is, just the same," protested Muriel.
"That two divorces are granted to wives to every one granted husbands."
"With all the respect to the best wife in the world," chuckled Stainton, as he again patted Muriel's hand, "that is largely due to the fact that the average American is so good a husband that, innocent as he may be, he pretends to be the guilty party."
"Is it not a little," he enquired, "because the disgrace of being judged a guilty husband is easier to bear than the ridicule that is involved in being unable to keep the love of one's wife?"
"Perhaps it is; perhaps it is," admitted Stainton. "But your figures do not prove anything against us as husbands, Captain. The only reason that similar figures don't show the men of other countries to be worse husbands than we are--if, indeed, they don't show it--is that the laws of other countries simply do not permit such easy divorce."
"Then what of your population?" asked the Austrian, reverting to his previous line of attack. "It declines as divorce rises in your country."
"I think I shall take a little walk," she said.
Stainton half-rose. Von Klausen sprang to his feet.
"No, no," said Muriel; "please sit still, both of you."
"I don't want to interrupt your talk," the girl said. "Finish that and then join me, Jim."