Do you want to be a blot upon that career?
I'd rather be a blot than a blight, and that's what I'd be if I became his bride. Ask John.
Do you want to be disgraced, despised, ostracized!
A choice of evils, dear; of course, none of those costly well-kept wives on your visiting list will call upon me. But instead of one day at home, instead of making a tired husband work for me, I'll have all my days free to work with him, like the old-fashioned woman you admire! Instead of being an expense, I'll be a help to him; instead of being separated by marriage and divergent interests, we'll be united by love and common peril.... Isn't that the orthodox way to gain character, Theodore?
Oh, this is all damned nonsense! Look here, you've either got to marry this fellow now or else go away and never see him again; never, never!
Just what I thought, John. I intended never to see him again. That was why I let you send me abroad. But I'll never, never do it again. [_Smiling like an engaged girl._] It was perfectly dreadful! Ernest couldn't get along without me at all, poor old thing. And I, why, I nearly died.
Then you'll have to be married, that's all.
Why, of course you'll have to, that's all.
Oh, I know just how you feel about it. I thought so, too, at first, but I can't marry Ernest Hamilton. I love him.
But if you love him truly--marriage, my dear, brings together those who love each other truly.
But those who love each other truly don't need anything to bring them together. The difficulty is to keep apart.
That's all romantic rot! Every one feels that way at first.
At first! Then the practical object of marriage is not to bring together those who love each other, but to keep together those who do not? [_To LUCY._] What a dreadful thing marriage must be!
Ah, so you wish to be free to separate. Now we have it.
To separate? What an idea! On the contrary, we wish to be free to keep together! In the old days when they had interests in common marriage used to make man and woman one, but now it puts them apart. Can't you see it all about you? He goes down-town and works; she stays up-town and plays. He belongs to the laboring class; she belongs to the leisure class. At best, they seldom work at the same or similar trades. Legally it may be a union, but socially it's a mésalliance--in the eyes of God it's often worse.... No wonder that one in eleven ends in divorce. The only way to avoid spiritual separation is to shun legal union like a contagious disease. Modern marriage _is_ divorce. [_She turns to go, defiantly._] I've found my work, I've found my mate, and so has he! What more can any human being ask?