Part 36 (2/2)
”Why should you guard her soul? Isn't the average woman intelligent enough to look out for herself? What she does, she does because she wants to, and for Heaven's sake, man, let her have the right to freedom of being.”
”But real freedom of being lies in her dependence on me as the head of the house,” Philip protested.
”If you happen to be the head of the house,” Lawrence added jestingly.
”But I would be the head of the house. It is my right and my duty.”
”Poor Mrs. Ortez, if there ever is one,” Lawrence continued, joking.
”She is to be guarded by a great, aggressive, possessing husband. What if she happens to want something you don't approve of?”
”She won't. A good woman doesn't.”
”But suppose your woman isn't good, and does?”
”I should have to explain to her her mistake.”
”And then when she says, 'But I don't regard it as a mistake, I think it was quite right,' what will you do?”
”I wouldn't have a woman who would hold such views.”
”What is it you want for a wife, Philip? A brainless feminine body who is content to be your slave?”
”I should be ashamed to speak of any woman I cared for in those terms.
One doesn't marry a woman who can be thought of in terms of s.e.x.”
”Perhaps 'one doesn't.' I would. I should want her to be very well aware of her exact physical potentialities, and to think enough about them to understand herself.”
”Then you would want an unwholesome wife, my friend.”
”Not at all. I want a natural one, that's all. Moreover,” he added joyously, ”I shall have one.”
Philip glanced at him quickly. Into his mind flashed the memory of Claire's words in the room that fatal afternoon.
”I shall never marry such a woman,” he declared, and added: ”But I mean to have one whose devotion is so pure that even her talk to me of such things will be holy.”
Lawrence laughed heartily.
”Philip,” he said, still chuckling, ”you seem to think we human beings are half supernatural and half stinking dirt. Why, in Heaven's name, don't you once see us as plain, healthy, intelligent animals?”
”Because we're half G.o.ds, half beasts.”
”So I was once told by the son of an ancient mind whose farthest mental frontier reached A.D. 1123.”
Philip rose and faced Lawrence, then looked shamefacedly at Claire, and sat down again.
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