"
"But why should that be necessary?"
"It may not be if I am free--free to meet every situation as it arises,
with no responsibility for others resting upon me in the decision. If I had
a wife, how could I be free? I might be forced to sell myself--not for fame
but for a bare living. Suppose choice between freedom with poverty and
comfort with self-contempt were put squarely at me, and I a married man.
She would decide, wouldn't she?"
"Yes, and if she were the right sort of a woman, decide instantly for
self-respect."
"Of course--if I asked her. But do you imagine that when a man loves a
woman he lets her know?"
"It would be a crime not to let her know."
"It would be a greater crime to put her to the test--if she were a woman
brought up, say, as you have been."
"How can you say that? How can you so overestimate the value of mere
incidentals?"
"How can I? Because I have known poverty--have known what it was to look
want in the face. Because I have seen women, brought up as you have been,
crawling miserably about in the sloughs of poverty. Because I have seen the
weaknesses of human nature and know that they exist in me--yes, and in you,
for all your standing there so strong and arrogant and self-reliant. It is
easy to talk of misery when one does not understand it.
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