"
"I only see what they see when they look in the mirror."
"Yes, but you see it impartial--or rather, I should say, cynically."
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For calling me cynical. The two keenest pleasures a man can attain are for
a woman to call him a cynic and for a woman to call him a devil with the
women."
"Are you a 'devil with the women'?"
"Not I--not any more than I am a cynic. But let us talk about you--I am
about exhausted as a topic of conversation. Why do you look so
discontented?"
"Because I have nothing to occupy my mind."
"No children?"
"None--and no dogs."
"No husband?"
"Husbands are busy."
"So you are the typical American woman--the American instinct for doing,
the universal woman's instinct for sunshine and laziness; the husband
absorbed in his business or profession with his domestic life as an
incident; the wife--like you."
"That is right, and wrong--nearer right than wrong, a little unjust to the
husband."
"Oh, it's probably your fault that you are not absorbed in his business or
profession. It ought to be as much yours as his. What does he do?"
"He edits a newspaper."
"Oh, he's _the_ Mr. Howard. A very interesting, a very remarkable
man."
Marian was delighted by this appreciation.
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