Henry, why didn't you try to restrain your feelings a little in
common consideration for me? Why didn't you write with some
little reserve?

HE. Write poems to you with reserve! You ask me that!

SHE [with perfunctory tenderness] Yes, dear, of course it was
very nice of you; and I know it was my own fault as much as
yours. I ought to have noticed that your verses ought never to
have been addressed to a married woman.

HE. Ah, how I wish they had been addressed to an unmarried woman!
how I wish they had!

SHE. Indeed you have no right to wish anything of the sort. They
are quite unfit for anybody but a married woman. That's just the
difficulty. What will my sisters-in-law think of them?

HE [painfully jarred] Have you got sisters-in-law?

SHE. Yes, of course I have. Do you suppose I am an angel?

HE [biting his lips] I do. Heaven help me, I do--or I did--or [he
almost chokes a sob].

SHE [softening and putting her hand caressingly on his shoulder]
Listen to me, dear. It's very nice of you to live with me in a
dream, and to love me, and so on; but I can't help my husband
having disagreeable relatives, can I?