ct of women! It is tacitly taken for granted
that my knowledge of the subject is exclusively theoretical. I do not
contest this, because the converse of the proposition, that all married
men are practical experts, is so absurd that nobody ventures to state
it. I had been discussing Mrs. Carville and the probable effect of
American life upon her when she should have more leisure to cultivate
herself. My point was that she might possibly have some influence upon
her husband. And this was followed, as I have said, by a long silence.

"No," said Mac, at length, "I don't think so." I had almost forgotten
what we were talking about, for I could already see that the lamps in
the dining-room were lighted and shadows moving on the blind.

"Oh!" I said. "Why not?"

"Well," he answered. "Of course, we don't know her very well, but we do
know him. And I should say that the woman doesn't live who could shift
him from what he proposed to do. You may not see it in the same way, but
it is plain enough. His brother," went on my friend with a laugh,
"hasn't all the devil in the family, and don't you think it."

And we came up to the door and sat down in the porch to take off our
boots. I confess this view was to me entirely novel. I felt chagrined
that I had been so lacking in intelligence as to miss so obvious a
possibility. I had a faint, uneasy suspicion that my friend was laughing
at me. But the idea was so pregnant with interest that I soon forgot my
mortification. Before I had got my boots completely off I was away on a
tour of this new and fascinating region. I leaned back in my chair and
gazed pensively towards the faint glare of New York City. It was true, I
reflected, that we had at the very first postulated a certain friction
between our neighbour and his wife. But then we had not listened to the
love story of our neighbour and his wife. I thought, as I sat there,
that I saw the point I had missed. Mr. Carville, supposing he had what
my friend called the devil in the family, would not exploit it while
telling us the story of his life. And so I, who had abandoned myself to
the enjoyment of his peculiar mentality, had forgotten that he might
have, all the time, some of the "devil" after all, that he might, in
short, be difficult to live with. I hesitated to use the word "faults."
Mr. Carville himself had seemed to imply that the ordinary matrimonial
disagreements were as inevitable and as fundamental as cosmic
disturbances. P