human
I don't yet quite understand, Henriette, your object in coming to Paris.
gpt
I came to make an appeal to your sense of duty and your generosity.
human
Ah!
gpt
I came, Henriette went on, bracing herself as if for a great effort,
human
I did no such thing, and you know it, Henriette. How do you _dare_ to sit there and tell me that?
gpt
I tell you nothing but the truth. Every woman who marries enters, by that fact, into a contract.
human
Then you actually intended to _entrap_ me into this so-called contract, by leading me to suppose that it would mean nothing more between Hubert and myself than an unavoidable formality! You tell me this to my face, and don't appear to see that you are confessing an act of deliberate treachery.
gpt
Nonsense, cried Henriette.
human
There was nothing that any sane person would have objected to, in our conduct.
gpt
And yet you would have felt yourselves stained with dishonour for the rest of your lives had you procured anything _else_ on false pretences! But a woman--that is a different affair. The code of honour does not here apply, it would seem. _Any_ fraud may be honourably practised on _her_, and wild is the surprise and indignation if she objects when she finds it out.
human
You are perfectly mad,
gpt
What I say is true, whether I be mad or sane. What you call the 'contract' is simply a cunning contrivance for making a woman and her possible children the legal property of a man, and for enlisting her own honour and conscience to safeguard the disgraceful transaction.
human
Ah, said Henriette, on the watch for her opportunity,
gpt
Certainly, in the case of most women. That enlistment is a masterpiece of policy. To make a prisoner his own warder is surely no light stroke of genius. But that is exactly what I refused to be from the first, and no one could have spoken more plainly. And now you are shocked and pained and aggrieved because I won't eat my words. Yet we have talked over all this, in my room at Dunaghee, by the hour. Oh! Henriette, why did you not listen to your conscience and be honest with me?
human
Hadria, you insult me.
gpt
Why could not Hubert choose one among the hundreds and thousands of women who would have passed under the yoke without a question, and have gladly harnessed herself to his chariot by the reins of her own conscience?
human
I would to heaven he _had_!
gpt
Ah, why did he not meet my frankness with an equal frankness, at the time? All this trouble would have been saved us both if _only_ he had been honest.
human
My dear, he was in love with you.
gpt
And so he thought himself justified in deceiving me. There is _indeed_ war to the knife between the sexes!
human
It is not fair to use that word. I tell you that we both confidently expected that when you had more experience you would be like other women and adjust yourself sensibly to your conditions.
gpt
I see, said Hadria,
human
In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, our forecasts would have come true, she said.
gpt
I mean----
human
That is refreshingly frank,
gpt
We thought we acted for the best.
human
Oh, if it comes to that, the Spanish Inquisitors doubtless thought that they were acting for the best, when they made bonfires of heretics in the market-places.
gpt
Well, if there be any one at fault in the matter, _I_ am the culprit, she said in a voice that trembled.
human
It was _I_ who assured Hubert that experience would alter you. It was I who represented to him that though you might be impulsive, even hard at times, you could not persist in a course that would give pain, and that if you saw that any act of yours caused him to suffer, you would give it up. I was convinced that your character was good and noble _au fond_, Hadria, and I have believed it up to this moment.
gpt
You make me regret that I ever had a good or a pitiful impulse!
human
Why do you always resist your better nature, Hadria?
gpt
You use it against me. It is the same with all women. Let them beware of their 'better natures,' poor hunted fools! for that 'better nature' will be used as a dog-chain, by which they can be led, like toy-terriers, from beginning to end of what they are pleased to call their lives!
human
Oh, Hadria, Hadria!
gpt
It is cunning, shallow, heartless women, who really fare best in our society; its conditions suit them. _They_ have no pity, no sympathy to make a chain of; _they_ don't mind stooping to conquer; _they_ don't mind playing upon the weaker, baser sides of men's natures; _they_ don't mind appealing, for their own ends, to the pity and generosity of others; _they_ don't mind swallowing indignity and smiling abjectly, like any woman of the harem at her lord, so that they gain their object. _That_ is the sort of 'woman's nature' that our conditions are busy selecting. Let us cultivate it. We live in a scientific age; the fittest survive. Let us be 'fit.'
human
Let us be womanly, let us do our duty, let us hearken to our conscience!
gpt
Thank you! If my conscience is going to be made into a helm by which others may guide me according to their good pleasure, the sooner that helm is destroyed the better. That is the conclusion to which you drive me and the rest of us, Henriette.
human
Charity demands that I do not believe what you say,
gpt
Oh, don't trouble to be charitable!
human
Hadria, she said,
gpt
returned Hadria.
human
Why should the results of that treachery be thrust on to _my_ shoulders to bear? Why should _my_ generosity be summoned to your rescue? But I suppose you calculated on that sub-consciously, at the time.
gpt
This is a moment for plain speaking, if ever there was one. You must have reckoned on an appeal to my generosity, and on the utter helplessness of my position when once I was safely entrapped. It was extremely clever and well thought out. Do you suppose that you would have dared to act as you did, if there had been means of redress in my hands, after marriage?
human
If I _did_ rely on your generosity, I admit my mistake,
gpt
And now when your deed brings its natural harvest of disaster, you and Hubert come howling, like frightened children, to have the mischief set straight again, the consequences of your treachery averted, by _me_, of all people on this earth!
human
You are his wife, the mother of his children.
gpt
In heaven's name, Henriette, why do you always run into my very jaws?
human
I don't know what you mean.
gpt
Why do you catalogue my injuries when your point is to deny them?
human
Hadria, Hubert is one of the best men in England. I----
gpt
When have I disputed that?
human
I believe that Hubert has acted conscientiously, according to his standard. But I detest his standard. He did not think it wrong or treacherous to behave as he did towards me. But it is _that very fact_ that I so bitterly resent. I could have forgiven him a sin against myself alone, which he acknowledged to be a sin. But this is a sin against my entire sex, which he does _not_ acknowledge to be a sin. It is the insolence that is implied in supposing it allowable for a man to trick a woman in that way, without the smallest damage to his self-respect, that sticks so in my throat. What does it imply as regards his attitude towards all women? Ah! it is _that_ which makes me feel so rancorous. And I resent Hubert's calm assumption that he had a right to judge what was best for me, and even to force me, by fraud, into following his view, leaving me afterwards to adjust myself with circumstance as best I might: to make my bitter choice between unconditional surrender, and the infliction of pain and distress, on him, on my parents, on everybody. Ah, you calculated cunningly, Henriette! I _am_ a coward about giving pain, little as you may now be disposed to credit it. You have tight hold of the end of my chain.