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CHAPTER II.
Scarcely had the old man gone when a general conversation began.
"There's a little Old Testament father for you," said the clerk.
"
He is a Domostroy,"* said the lady. "What savage ideas about a woman
and marriage!"
*The Domostroy is a matrimonial code of the days of Ivan the
Terrible.
"Yes, gentlemen," said the lawyer, "we are still a long way from the
European ideas upon marriage. First, the rights of woman, then free
marriage, then divorce, as a question not yet solved." . . .
"
The main thing, and the thing which such people as he do not
understand," rejoined the lady, "is that only love consecrates marriage,
and that the real marriage is that which is consecrated by love."
The clerk listened and smiled, with the air of one accustomed to store
in his memory all intelligent conversation that he hears, in order to
make use of it afterwards.
"
But what is this love that consecrates marriage?" said, suddenly, the
voice of the nervous and taciturn gentleman, who, unnoticed by us, had
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