st revolt any woman above the lowest. To be the object of the
oafish affections of such a creature, even when they are honest and
profound, cannot be expected to give any genuine joy to a woman of sense
and refinement. His performance as a gallant, as Honor de Balzac long
ago observed, unescapably suggests a gorilla's efforts to play the
violin. Women survive the tragicomedy only by dint of their great
capacity for play-acting. They are able to act so realistically that
often they deceive even themselves; the average woman's contentment,
indeed, is no more than a tribute to her histrionism. But there must be
innumerable revolts in secret, even so, and one sometimes wonders
that so few women, with the thing so facile and so safe, poison their
husbands. Perhaps it is not quite as rare as vital statistics make it
out; the deathrate among husbands is very much higher than among wives.
More than once, indeed, I have gone to the funeral of an acquaintance
who died suddenly, and observed a curious glitter in the eyes of the
inconsolable widow.

Even in this age of emancipation, normal women have few serious
transactions in life save with their husbands and potential husbands;
the business of marriage is their dominant concern from adolescence to
senility. When they step outside their habitual circle they show the
same alert and eager wariness that they exhibit within it. A man who
has dealings with them must keep his wits about him, and even when he
is most cautious he is often flabbergasted by their sudden and
unconscionable forays. Whenever woman goes into trade she quickly gets a
reputation as a sharp trader. Every little town in America has its Hetty
Green, each sweating blood from turnips, each the terror of all the
male usurers of the neighbourhood. The man who tackles such an amazon
of barter takes his fortune into his hands; he has little more chance of
success against the feminine technique in business than he has against
the feminine technique in marriage. In both arenas the advantage of
women lies in their freedom from sentimentality. In business they
address themselves wholly to their own profit, and give no thought
whatever to the hopes, aspirations and amour propre of their
antagonists. And in the duel of sex they fence, not to make points, but
to disable and disarm. Aman, when he succeeds in throwing off a woman
who has attempted to marry him, always carries away a maudlin sympathy
for her in her defeat and di