to comfort
himself as he opened the door.

CHAPTER XII.

Lady Claudia is Vexed with Mankind.

Of course she knew who it was, and her uninviting tone was a result of
her knowledge. We are yet awaiting a systematic treatise on the
psychology of women; perhaps they will some day be trained highly enough
to analyze themselves. Until this happens, we must wait; for no man
unites the experience and the temperament necessary. This could be
proved, if proof were required; but, happily, proof of assertions is not
always required, and proof of this one would lead us into a long
digression, bristling with disputable matter, and requiring perhaps
hardly less rare qualities than the task of writing the treatise itself.
The modest scribe is reduced to telling how Claudia behaved, without
pretending to tell why she behaved so, far less attempting to group her
under a general law. He is comforted in thus taking a lower place by the
thought that after all nobody likes being grouped under general laws--it
is more interesting to be peculiar--and that Claudia would have regarded
such an attempt with keen indignation; and by the further thought that
if you once start on general laws, there's no telling where you will
stop. The moment you get yours nicely formulated, your neighbor comes
along with a wider one, and reduces it to a subordinate proposition, or
even to the humiliating status of a mere example. Now even philosophers
lose their temper when this occurs, while ordinary mortals resort to
abuse. These dangers and temptations may be conscientiously, and shall
be scrupulously, avoided.

Eugene advanced into the room with all the assurance he could muster; he
could muster a good deal, but he felt he needed it every bit, for
Claudia's aspect was not conciliatory. She greeted him with civility,
and in reply to his remark that being in the neighborhood he thought he
might as well call, expressed her gratification and hinted her surprise
at his remembering to do so. She then sat down, and for ten minutes by
the clock talked fluently and resolutely about an extraordinary variety
of totally uninteresting things. Eugene used this breathing-space to
recover himself. He said nothing, or next to nothing, but waited
patiently for Claudia to run down. She struggled desperately against
exhaustion; but at last she could not avoid a pause. Eugene's
generalship had foreseen that this opening was inevitable. Like Fabius
he waited, and like F