ide the bed. She had ordered
it in a mood of jealous annoyance because of a few pages of art
criticism in it by Mrs. Fairmile, which impertinently professed to know
more about the Vitali Signorelli than its present owner did; but she
remembered also an article on "The Future for Women," which had seemed
to her a fine, progressive thing. She turned the pages noiselessly--her
eyes now on the unconscious Roger--now on the book.

"All forms of contract--in business, education, religion, or
law--suffer from the weakness and blindness of the persons making
them--the marriage contract as much as any other. The dictates of
humanity and common-sense alike show that the latter and most
important contract should no more be perpetual than any of the
others."

Again:--

"Any covenant between human beings that fails to produce or promote
human happiness, cannot in the nature of things be of any force or
authority; it is not only a right but a duty to abolish it."

And a little further:--

"Womanhood is the great fact of woman's life. Wifehood and
motherhood are but incidental relations."

Daphne put down the book. In the dim light, the tension of her slender
figure, her frowning brow, her locked arms and hands, made of her a
threatening Fate hovering darkly above the man in his deep, defenceless
sleep.

She was miserable, consumed with jealous anger. But the temptation of a
new licence--a lawless law--was in her veins. Have women been trampled
on, insulted, enslaved?--in America, at least, they may now stand on
their feet. No need to cringe any more to the insolence and cruelty of
men. A woman's life may be soiled and broken; but in the great human
workshop of America it can be repaired. She remembered that in the
majority of American divorces it is the woman who applies for relief.
And why not? The average woman, when she marries, knows much less of
life and the world than the average man. She is more likely--poor
soul!--to make mistakes.

She drew closer to the bed. All round her glimmered the furniture and
appointments of a costly room--the silver and tortoise-shell on the
dressing-table, the long mirrors lining the farther wall, the silk
hangings of the bed. Luxury, as light and soft as skill and money could
make it--the room breathed it; and in the midst stood the young creature
who had designed it, the will within her hardening rapidly to an
irrevocable purpose.