"Oh, of course! As for _that_----! But now--now you're in my bones. We were just two shallow, pretty, young things--loving. It was sweet, dear--sweet as youth--but not this. Unkempt and weary--then one understands love. I suppose I _am_ dirty. Think of it! I've lugged you through the snow till my shoulders chafed and bled. I cried with pain, and kept on lugging----Oh, my dear! my dear!" He kissed her hair. "I've held you in my arms to keep you from freezing. (I'd have frozen myself first.) We've got to starve together perhaps before the end.... Dear, if I could make you, you should eat me.... I'm--I'm beginning to understand. I've had a light. I've begun to understand. I've begun to see what life has been for you, and how I've wasted--wasted." "_We've_ wasted!" "No," she said, "it was I." She sat back on the floor and regarded him. "You don't remember things you said--when you were delirious?" "No," he answered. "What did I say?" "Nothing?" "Nothing clearly. What did I say?" "It doesn't matter. No, indeed. Only you made me understand. You'd never have told me. You've always been a little weak with me there. But it's plain to me why we didn't keep our happiness, why we were estranged. If we go back alive, we go back--all that settled for good and all." "What?" "That discord. My dear, I've been a fool, selfish, ill-trained and greedy. We've both been floundering about, but I've been the mischief of it. Yes, I've been the trouble. Oh, it's had to be so. What are we women--half savages, half pets, unemployed things of greed and desire--and suddenly we want all the rights and respect of souls! I've had your life in my hands from the moment we met together. If I had known.... It isn't that we can make you or guide you--I'm not pretending to be an inspiration--but--but we can release you. We needn't press upon you; we can save you from the instincts and passions that try to waste you altogether on us.... Yes, I'm beginning to understand. Oh, my child, my husband, my man! You talked of your wasted life!... I've been thinking--since first we left the Mersey. I've begun to see what it is to be a woman. For the first time in my life. We're the responsible sex. And we've forgotten it. We think we've done a wonder if we've borne men into the world and smiled a little, but indeed we've got to bear them all our lives.... A woman has to be steadier than a man and more self-sacrificing than a man, because when she plunges she does more harm than a man.... And what does she achieve if she does plunge? Nothing--nothing worth counting. Dresses and carpets and hangings and pretty arrangements, excitements and satisfactions and competition and more excitements. We can't _do_ things. We don't bring things off! And you, you Monster! you Dream! you want to stick your hand out of all that is and make something that isn't, begin to be! That's the man----" "Dear old Madge!" he said, "there's all sorts of women and all sorts of men."