"Elodia, do you intend ever to marry?" It was a kind of challenge, and I held myself rigid, waiting for her answer, which did not come immediately. She turned her eyes toward me slowly without moving her head, and our glances met and gradually retreated, as two opposing forces might meet and retreat, neither conquering, neither vanquished. Hers went back into space, and she replied at last as if to space,--as if the question had come, not from me alone, but from all the voices that urge to matrimony. "Why should I marry?" "Because you are a woman," I answered promptly. "Ah!" her lip curled with a faint smile, "your reason is very general, but why limit it at all, why not say because I am one of a pair which should be joined together?" The question was not cynical, but serious; I scrutinized her face closely to make sure of that before answering. "I know," I replied, "that here in Mars there is held to be no difference in the nature and requirements of the sexes, but it is a false hypothesis, there is a difference,--a vast difference! all my knowledge of humanity, my experience and observation, prove it." "Prove it to you, no doubt," she returned, "but not to me, because my experience and observation have been the reverse of yours. Will you kindly tell me," she added, "why you think I should wish to marry any more than a man,--or what reasons can be urged upon a woman more than upon a man?" An overpowering sense of helplessness fell upon me,--as when one has reached the limits of another's understanding and is unable to clear the ground for further argument. "O, Elodia! I cannot talk to you," I replied. "It is true, as you say, that our conclusions are based upon diverse premises; we are so wide apart in our views on this subject that what I would say must seem to you the merest cant and sentiment." "I think not; you are an honest man," she rejoined with an encouraging smile, "and I am greatly interested in your philosophy of marriage." I acknowledged her compliment. "Well," I began desperately, letting the words tumble out as they would, "it is woman's nature, as I understand it, to care a great deal about being loved,--loved wholly and entirely by one man who is worthy of her love, and to be united to him in the sacred bonds of marriage. To have a husband, children; to assume the sweet obligations of family ties, and to gather to herself the tenderest and purest affections humanity can know, is surely, indisputably, the best, the highest, noblest, province of woman." "And not of man?" "These things mean the same to men, of course," I replied, "though in lesser degree. It is man's office--with us--to buffet with the world, to wrest the means of livelihood, of comfort, luxury, from the grudging hand of fortune. It is the highest grace of woman that she accepts these things at his hands, she honors him in accepting, as he honors her in bestowing."