"See what you've started," Edith said. "It's like the poem, where the magic kiss woke the princess, and set all the clocks to going and the little dogs to barking outside. Don't let me talk you to death--I've been chattering for considerably over an hour, and, very selfishly, of my own affairs, to the exclusion of everything else." "But your affairs interest me extremely, I wish I knew of some way to help you." "In the last analysis, of course, it comes to this--either go on and make the best of it, or quit." [Sidenote: The Marriage Vow] "Not--not divorce," breathed Madame. Her violet eyes were wide with horror. "No," Edith answered, shortly, "not divorce. Separation, possibly, but not divorce, which is only a legal form permitting one to marry again. Personally, I feel bound by the solemn oath I took at the altar, 'until death do us part,' and 'forsaking all others keep thee only unto me so long as we both shall live.' All the laws in the country couldn't make me feel right with my own conscience if I violated that oath." "If the marriage service were changed," Madame said, nodding her approval, "it might be justified. If one said, at the altar, 'Until death or divorce do us part,' or 'Until I see someone else I like better,' there'd be reason for it, but, as it is, there isn't. And again, it says, 'Those whom God hath joined let no man put asunder.'" "Those whom God hath joined no man can put asunder," Edith retorted, "but did God do it? It doesn't seem right to blame Him for all the pitiful mistakes that masquerade as marriage. Mother used to say," she resumed, after a little, "that when you're more miserable without a man than you think you ever could be with him, it's time to marry him, and when you're more miserable with him than you think you ever could be without him, it's time to quit." [Sidenote: Envious Women] "And," suggested Madame, "in which class do you belong?" "Both, I think--that is, I'm miserable enough to belong to both. I'm unhappy when he's with me and wretched when he isn't. As he mostly isn't, I'm more wretched than unhappy. In the small circle in which I move, I'm considered a very fortunate woman. "Women who are compelled to be mendicants and who do not know that I have a private income, envy me my gowns and hats, my ability to ask a friend or two to luncheon if I choose, and the unfailing comfort of a taxicab if I'm caught in the rain. They think, if they had my gowns and my grooming, that they could win and keep love, which seems to be about all a woman wants. But these things are, in reality, as useless as painting the house when the thermometer is below zero and you need a fire inside to warm your hands by. I have imported gowns and real lace and furs and jewels and all the grooming I'm willing to take, but my soul is frozen and starved.