They are either archangels upon earth--young Gladstones and Newmans--or else they are cold, calculating, timid, un-virile creatures, who will never do any good. The first class must be splendid. I never met one except in memoirs. The others I don't want to meet.'
Women are not interested in generalities.
'Were they nicer than me?' she asked.
'Who?'
'Those forty women.'
'No, dear, of course not. Why are you laughing?'
'Well, it came into my head how funny it would be, if the forty were all gathered into one room, and you were turned loose in the middle of them.'
'Funny!' Frank ejaculated. Women have such extraordinary ideas of humour. Maude laughed until she was quite tired.
'It doesn't strike you as comic?' she cried at last.
'No, it doesn't,' he answered coldly.
'Of course it wouldn't,' said she, and went off into another ripple of pretty contralto laughter. There is a soft, deep, rich laugh, which some women have, that is the sweetest sound in Nature.
'When you have quite finished,' said he huffily. Her jealousy was much more complimentary than her ridicule.
'All right now. Don't be cross. If I didn't laugh I should cry. I'm so sorry if I have annoyed you.' He had gone back to his chair, so she paid him a flying visit. 'Satisfied?'
'Not quite.'
'Now?'
'All right. I forgive you.'
'That's funny too. Fancy YOU forgiving ME after all these confessions. But you never loved one of them all as you love me.'
'Never.'
'Swear it.'
'I do swear it.'
'Morally, and what do you call it, and the other?'
'Not one of them.'
'And never will again?'
'Never.'
'Good boy for ever and ever?'
'For ever and ever.'
'And the forty were horrid?'
'No, hang it, Maude, I can't say that.'
She pouted and hung her head.
'You do like them better, then?'
'How absurd you are, Maude! If I had liked one better, I should have married her.'
'Well, yes, I suppose you would. You must have taken a deeper interest in me than in the others, since you married me. I hadn't thought of that.'
'Silly old girl! Of course I liked you best. Let us drop the thing, and never talk about it any more.'
'Have you their photographs?'
'No.'
'None of them?'
'No.'
'What did you do with them?'
'I never had most of them.'
'And the others?'
'I destroyed some when I married.'
'That was nice of you. Aren't you sorry?'
'No, I thought it was only right.'
'Were you fondest of dark women or fair?'
'Oh, I don't know. _I_ was never pernickety in MY tastes. You know those lines I read you from Henley: "Handsome, ugly--all are women." That's a bachelor's sentiment.'
'But do you mean to say, sir--now, you are speaking on your honour, that out of all these forty, there was not one who was prettier than I am?'
'Do let us talk of something else.'
'And not one as clever?'
'How absurd you are to-night, Maude!'
'Come, answer me.'
'I've answered you already.'
'I did not hear you.'
'Oh yes, you did. I said that I had married you, and that shows that I liked you best. I don't compare you quality for quality against every one in the world. That would be absurd. What I say is that your combination of qualities is the one which is most dear to me.'
'Oh, I see,' said Maude dubiously. 'How nice and frank you are!'
'Now I've hurt you!'
'Oh no, not in the least. I like you to be frank. I should hate to think that there was anything you did not dare to tell me.'
'And you, Maude--would you be equally frank with me?'
'Yes, dear, I will. I feel that I owe it to you after your confidence in me. I have had my little experiences too.'
'You!'
'Perhaps you would rather that I said nothing about them. What good can there be in raking up these old stories?'
'No, I had rather you told me.'
'You won't be hurt?'
'No, no--certainly not.'
'You may take it from me, Frank, that if any married woman ever tells her husband that until she saw him she never felt any emotion at the sight of another man, it is simple nonsense.