"You know, Philippa, I don't believe, as the cant of the day has it, that a woman ought to earn for herself her daily bread; and that a woman should earn her husband's daily bread as well--to me, the mere idea of such a thing is nauseous. There may be men who are content to take the good which their wives provide. Thank goodness, I am not one of them. In this matter I am old-fashioned in my notions. I look at woman from a point of view which is, perhaps, my own. To me, the woman who, urged even by necessity, works for money, soils her womanhood, falls away from her high estate. I pity her, but--not _that_ woman, if you please, for me. Necessity, Philippa, surely does not urge you. Am I not always at your side? Believe me, my day will come--come shortly! Only wait!" Putting his arm about her waist, he looked up into her face, with, in his eyes, a certain light of laughter. "Besides, in the great army of the workers, what work do you think there is for you? Do you think that in you there is the making of a woman of letters, Philippa?" So he kissed her, and she said nothing. She could say nothing. She could only let him fondle her, as though they still were sweethearts. For she loved him, and he loved her. But though she loved him, in her heart there was a hot remonstrance, which she allowed to remain unspoken, because she loved him. It was easy to say that there was no necessity to prick her with a spur. But there were the tradesmen's bills unpaid, the rent in arrear, and the children wanted things--not to speak of herself and of him. And there was a drawer full of his unaccepted manuscripts. They went hither and thither, from editor to editor, and then for the most part they seemed to settle in the drawer. She understood well enough what he meant when he asked if she thought that she had in herself the making of a woman of letters. She had been a nothing and a nobody. She had not even been very pretty. Certainly no superfluity of money had been thrown away upon her education. It was not at all as it is in the story books, but, quite by chance, he met her. Before he knew it, he was wooing her. And, when things came to the worst at home, he married her--she having nothing which she could call her own except the things which she was wearing. And he had very little more. It was not strange that he should doubt if in her there was the making of a woman of letters--she, who, save in the way of love letters, had scarcely ever written a line.