"Almost as hard as women!" said Pen. "We're all so silly about it. We expect marriage to bring us happiness with no effort on our own parts, just as if the only aim of getting married were to be happy." "Mercy sakes!" exclaimed Jane. She sat forward on the edge of the chair. "Go on! Don't stop. I knew the minute I saw you that talking to you would beat writing to the advice column of a woman's magazine. What is it we marry for, anyhow?" Pen laughed. "Well, when we don't marry to be happy, we marry out of curiosity. It's funny when you think of it. Two people with nothing in common have a period of insanity during which they tie themselves together in a hard knot which they can't undo and then they must feed on each other for the rest of their lives." Jane gasped a little. "You--you aren't bitter, are you, Mrs. Penelope? I can't say your other name easy. You believe there are _some_ happy marriages, don't you?" Pen shrugged her shoulders. "No, I'm not bitter. I've just lost my illusions. I don't happen to know of any marriages so happy that they would tempt me to marry again." "I feel kind of wicked talking this way," said Jane. "But," recklessly, "you've seen the world and I haven't. And it's my chance to learn real life. You don't mean people ought not to marry, do you?" This in a half-whisper of utter demoralization. "Oh, no! Marriage is the best means we've found for perpetuating and improving the race. It's a duty we owe society, to marry. I don't believe much in divorce either. Except for unfaithfulness. Unless the average lot of us are true to the marriage ideal the whole institution will be tainted. I guess the safety of society lies in each of us looking at ourselves as average and not exceptional persons. Then we stick to the conventions. And the conventions weren't foisted on society from above. They were sweated out from beneath to satisfy; make it possible for us to endure each other." Jane Ames threw up both her hands. "O my! You have been hurt or you'd never be so cold-blooded! I can't look at it as calmly as you do as if it all belonged to someone else. You never bore children to a man. You can't realize what selfishness and unkindness from the father of your children can mean. Do you know that I've borne two babies in this room--alone--not even a squaw to help me? And I've watched the desert through the door and I've cursed it for what it's made of my marriage!" Jane gave a short laugh and held up her knotted, rough hands. "I had dimples on my knuckles when I came to this country." Pen looked out the door and tried to picture to herself this other woman's life. "I--I guess my safety has lain in my getting an impersonal view of things," she said apologetically. "There, the bread is burning!" exclaimed Jane. Pen laughed reminiscently. "There's a verse that says: "'Ice cream is very strange; so's a codfish ball, But the people people marry is the strangest thing of all!'"