"You must have the soft and lovely things of life, and the way to get them is to marry them. Now, sweet, you take your twenty-five hundred, be manicured and massaged and shampooed until you are glowing with beauty, buy a lot of lovely clothes, trip around like a lady, dance and play, and meet men--men with money--and there you are. You can look like a million dollars on your twenty-five hundred--and your looks will get you the million by marriage." "Miriam Landis, that is shameful," said Nolan in a voice of horror. "It is disgraceful. I never thought to hear a woman, a married woman, a nice woman, utter such low and grimy thoughts. Could any such marriage be happy?" "Well, Nolan," said Miriam sadly, "I am not sure that any marriage can be happy, or was ever supposed to be. But women are such that they have to try it once. Eveley will be like all the rest. And if she has to try it, she had better try it with a million, than with eighteen hundred a year." "There is something in that, Miriam, certainly," said Eveley thoughtfully. "What do you think, Eileen?" "I think it is absurd. The notion that woman was born for marriage died long ago. Ridiculous! Woman is born for life, for service, for action, just as man is. Look at the married people you know. How many of them are happy? I do not wish to be personal, but I know very few married people, either men or women, who would not be glad to undo the marriage knot if it could be done easily and quietly without notoriety. They are not happy. But we are happy. Why? Because we work, we think, we feel, we live. We are not slaves to the contentment of man. Go on working, my dear. Keep your independence. But play safe. Put your money in the bank, or in some good investment, and let it safeguard your future. Then you can go your way serene." "That is certainly sound. Marriage isn't the most successful thing in the world." "I should say not," chimed Kitty. "Husbands are always tired of wives, their own, I mean, inside of five years." "Well, if it comes to that," said Eveley honestly, "I suppose wives are tired of their own husbands, too. But they are so stubborn they won't admit it. In their hearts I suppose they are quite as sick of their husbands as their husbands are of them." "Eve," said Nolan anxiously, "where are you getting all these wicked notions? Marriage is the most sacred--" "Institution. I know it. Every one says marriage is a sacred institution, and so is a church. But nobody wants to live with one permanently." "But, Eveley, the sanctity of the--" "Home. Sure, we know it is sanctified. But monotonous. Deadly monotonous." "Eve," and his voice was quite tragic, "don't you feel that the divine sphere of--" "Woman. You needn't finish it, Nolan; we know it as well as you do. The divine sphere of woman is in the sanctified home keeping up the sacred institution of marriage while her husband--oh, tralalalalalala."