"I feel," I went on, "that being a rather dried-up old bachelor puts me at a disadvantage. What can I know of such a situation as we imagine? I, who jog along from day to day, a journeyman scribbler! What knowledge or experience have I of the heights and depths of passion? What can Peeping Tom know about it?" "Don't!" she said. "We're all Peeping Toms, as far as that goes. I'm sure," she went on, "it's very difficult to guess what's in the mind of a woman like her. She's very handsome, you know. She's one of those women who are rather puny and pathetic in their 'teens, with appealing eyes, but who grow big and healthy later. Marriage does wonders for them." "If the marriage is happy," I remarked casually. The silence that followed was so long that I twisted round in my chair. There was an odd expression on my friend's face, a commingling of wisdom, pity and reminiscence. "What have I said?" I asked. "No marriage is happy," she said gravely. "Yes!" I responded. "Not in the sense you understand the term. That's what we mean when we say you don't know anything about it. Marriage suits some men and women more than others, but that isn't to say the people it suits are any the happier. In fact, it's often the other way. They're frightfully unhappy at times. Very few married women haven't been on the point of--of making a dash for freedom at some time or other. Women you wouldn't accuse of a single rebellious thought all their born days. You'd say they were crazy. Perhaps so, at the time. They get all on edge. Weak, weedy women are different. They haven't the same call for freedom, somehow." "What do you mean by this dash for freedom business?" I asked. Bill looked at me solemnly. "Marriage is a ring-fence round a pretty small patch, as a rule," she observed. "A woman goes into it gladly. She feels young and weak and ignorant, and when she's married she feels _safe_. But when she grows up to her full stature of mind and body, and she's no longer weak and ignorant, it's different. It's no longer safety first with her." "But love ..." I began. She stopped me. "Oh, love's got nothing at all to do with it, you sentimental old thing. How old was Juliet--fourteen, wasn't she?" she asked suddenly, staring out of the window. I nodded. "Well, there you are!" She has many of her husband's expressions. "At thirty-two, say, she would have been a fine, big, handsome woman, knowing the world and alive all round. The chances are _she_ would have had a storm, as you call it." "If she'd married Romeo?" I asked. "'T wouldn't matter who she'd married," she replied, rubbing her nose. "You're thinking of love again, I'll be bound. I'm not talking about love, my good man, I'm talking about life." "Then you make no allowance for sentiment," I said.