Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/173

 think he does not speak the truth—for I am a feminist, you see—he said it was better for the husband to be murdered than to have the wife say the things she would say in such a case, because to listen would take all the rest of the husband's life."

She leaned back in her chair, laughing. "What a man! He is so amusing in what seems to be such a strange frankness, and because you cannot tell whether it is frankness or not, or if he is joking, or what it is at all. Never have I seen such a man in my life! Can it be true what he tells me?"

She addressed the question to Ogle; but he did not seem to hear it, for he was too greatly preoccupied with the revelation of her recent whereabouts:—the theory of Mme. Momoro's interest in specimens was plausible, yet hardly seemed to account for the number of hours she had too evidently spent in studying this single abominable one. Then, as the playwright sat staring plaintively at the smiling lady instead of replying, it was Macklyn who explained that the views of Tinker were not to be thought representative except of the Tinker walk in life. What the man said was true enough of countless Tinkerish couples; but these formed an inferior populace with