caution and deceit, and lies and arguments which end in the divorce court, and a woman enjoys being bossed and bullied and ordered about by the man she loves quite as much as he enjoys the bossing and bullying. It's her natural instinct to look up, but she can't look up to a man who is figuratively at her feet. She may struggle against the man who attempts to conquer her by main force, but she enjoys being conquered just the same, and it takes a great burden off her soul to be able to lay her head on a broad, masculine shoulder and to know that every affair in life is going to be settled and decided for her.

[97]

"She may talk about thinking for herself and voting and all that, but[98] she is always glad enough to sit back and be thought for and voted for by some man who has magnetized her into believing him the incarnation of intelligence. And any man can do it. If the average husband only had a little more nerve and fewer nerves, he could master his wife with one hand and his eyes shut. The heathen Turk can get along better with a whole harem full of women than the civilized man gets along with one lone, lorn wife. It isn't because he's any wiser or cleverer or kinder, but because the first Turk learned the short cut to managing a woman and passed the secret down in the family. They don't ask them to marry them over there, they order them; they don't request them to run an errand or sew on a button, they merely wave their[99] hands and the women fight for the privilege of obeying. They have known for ages what the white man never seems to have learned, that the way to take a woman is by storm and the way to hold her is by force and that any man can manage any woman if he only knows how and has the audacity and the courage—What are you trying to do, Mr. Travers?"

[98]

[99]

"I'VE got the courage at last—and the audacity."

"I'm taking a short cut to the divan," replied the bachelor, sitting down beside the widow, "and I've got the courage at last——"

"How dare you, Billy Travers!"

"And the audacity——"

"Stop! Stop!"

"And the nerve——"

 Prev. P 36/65 next