SIR W.: Now come! Tell me! How did your misunderstandings begin?
JEM: I really couldn't say.
SIR W.: And yet quarrels always have a beginning.
JEM: Of course, when women are so confoundedly selfish.
SIR W.: Kitty is selfish?
JEM: I don't want to make any complaints about her. Yet I must admit
that she takes absolutely no interest in anything which interests me.
You know my hobby--fishing----
SIR W.: And Kitty doesn't care for fishing?
JEM: Not she! Though, finding myself here, surrounded with trout
streams, you may imagine how I was naturally anxious to spend my days.
Kitty said fishing was a bore, and after having come out with me once or
twice, she sternly refused to do so any more. And why? Simply because
she wanted to tramp about with the shooters from Danby.
SIR W.: All this is but a trifling dissimilarity of taste, and
insufficient to cause a real estrangement.
JEM: A trifling dissimilarity! Why, our tastes differ in every essential
point! Kitty has got it into her head that a woman should take an
interest in things "outside herself." A friend of her mother's, who used
to conduct her to the British Museum, taught her to believe in
Culture--with a capital "C." To hear her talk of Pompeiian marbles,
Flaxman's designs, and all that sort of thing--why, it's sickening!
SIR W.: It strikes me you are unreasonable.
JEM: Oh, no! I'm not! A woman who takes an interest in things outside
herself becomes a nuisance.
[Illustration: SIR W.: "IT STRIKES ME YOU ARE UNREASONABLE."