It's because women who are happily married can't and won't understand
the position of those who are not that there's so much difficulty in
reforming marriage laws.'

'But I understand you, Amy, and I grieve about you. What you are to do I
can't think.'

'Oh, it's easy to see what I shall do. Of course I have no choice
really. And I ought to have a choice; that's the hardship and the wrong
of it. Perhaps if I had, I should find a sort of pleasure in sacrificing
myself.'

There were some new novels on the table; Amy took up a volume presently,
and glanced over a page or two.

'I don't know how you can go on reading that sort of stuff, book after
book,' she exclaimed.

'Oh, but people say this last novel of Markland's is one of his best.'

'Best or worst, novels are all the same. Nothing but love, love, love;
what silly nonsense it is! Why don't people write about the really
important things of life? Some of the French novelists do; several of
Balzac's, for instance. I have just been reading his "Cousin Pons," a
terrible book, but I enjoyed it ever so much because it was nothing like
a love story. What rubbish is printed about love!'

'I get rather tired of it sometimes,' admitted Edith with amusement.

'I should hope you do, indeed. What downright lies are accepted as
indisputable! That about love being a woman's whole life; who believes
it really? Love is the most insignificant thing in most women's lives.
It occupies a few months, possibly a year or two, and even then I doubt
if it is often the first consideration.'

Edith held her head aside, and pondered smilingly.

'I'm sure there's a great opportunity for some clever novelist who will
never write about love at all.'

'But then it does come into life.'

'Yes, for a month or two, as I say. Think of the biographies of men and
women; how many pages are devoted to their love affairs? Compare those
books with novels which profess to be biographies, and you see how false
such pictures are. Think of the very words "novel," "romance"--what do
they mean but exaggeration of one bit of life?'

'That may be true. But why do people find the subject so interesting?'

'Because there is so little love in real life. That's the truth of
it. Why do poor people care only for stories about the rich? The same
principle.'

'How clever you are, Amy!'

'Am I? It's very nice to be told so. Perhaps I have some cleverness of a
kind; but what use is it to me? My life is being