No one would care to have me."
"And I? Am I thus the object of every one's disregard?"
"Oh, you--you are a man. It is right for a man. It makes him
look wise. His wife says, 'Behold, my husband has grey hair. He
has wisdom. If I am not good he will beat me. So I must obey
him."'
"She wouldn't run off with a good-for-nothing scamp of
two-and-twenty?"
"Oh, no-o," said Carlotta. "She would not be so wicked."
"I am glad," said I, "that you think a sense of conjugal duty is
an ineradicable element of female nature. But suppose she fell
in love with the young scamp?"
"Men fall in love," she replied sagely. "Women only fall in love
in stories--Turkish stories. They love their husbands."
"You amaze me," said I.
Ye-es," said Carlotta.
"But in England, a man wants a woman to love him before he
marries her."
"How can she?" asked Carlotta.
This was a staggering question.
"I don't know," said I, "but she dus."
"Then before I marry a man in England I must love him? But I
shall die without a husband!"
"I don't think so," said I.
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