Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/172

 trust her sincerity; and then, in view of what she lightly made known a few minutes later, he began to suspect that her accusation had contained an element of humour.

"Tell me," she said: "Is it true that everywhere in the United States the ladies are the tyrants and the husbands like slaves of the harem who are allowed to go out to work, but only under supervision? Is it true that those poor husbands must always say to the wives, 'At such and such a time I was at such and such a place for such and such a purpose'? That extraordinary man told me this, last evening, up yonder in the corner of the boat-deck where he says he is 'safe.' He insists to me that those are the conditions of marriage for all American husbands: they must account to the wives for every moment, and if a husband speaks at all to any woman not in his family, he must tell every word the woman has said to him and every word he has said to her. I could not believe it, and I asked him some questions about it again to-day. He said it was true, and that no husband could go alone to call upon a woman unless his wife first instructed him to do it. Otherwise the wife would murder the husband; and when I said I