"Do you mean to have children, Laura ?" "I don't know." "I think you do know.

Do you mean to have children ?" Her big black eyes, dilating, were fixed defiantly on his own.
"Well then, no, I don't!" she replied.

He made a desperate effort to think what he could say to her.

Good God, how he was bungling! Where were all his arguments?
"How about your religion ?" he blurted out.
"I haven't any--which makes me do that--I've a right to be happy!" "You haven't!" His voice had suddenly changed.

In accent and in quality it was like a voice from the heart of New England where he had been born and bred.