ys with women, the best of them and the worst of them. Of the
brute that is in all men, of the queerness of them that breaks the
hearts of stupid women who do not understand. And all women are stupid.
I am not stupid. La la, listen.

"I am an old woman. And like a woman, I'll not tell you how old I am.
Yet can I hold men. Yet would I hold men, toothless and a hundred, my
nose touching my chin. Not the young men. They were mine in my young
days. But the old men, as befits my years. And well for me the power is
mine. In all this world I am without kin or cash. Only have I wisdom and
memories--memories that are ashes, but royal ashes, jeweled ashes. Old
women, such as I, starve and shiver, or accept the pauper's dole and
the pauper's shroud. Not I. I hold my man. True, 'tis only Barry
Higgins--old Barry, heavy, an ox, but a male man, my dear, and queer
as all men are queer. 'Tis true, he has one arm." She shrugged her
shoulders. "A compensation. He cannot beat me, and old bones are tender
when the round flesh thins to strings.

"But when I think of my wild young lovers, princes, mad with the madness
of youth! I have lived. It is enough. I regret nothing. And with old
Barry I have my surety of a bite to eat and a place by the fire. And
why? Because I know men, and shall never lose my cunning to hold them.
'Tis bitter sweet, the knowledge of them, more sweet than bitter--men
and men and men! Not stupid dolts, nor fat bourgeois swine of business
men, but men of temperament, of flame and fire; madmen, maybe, but a
lawless, royal race of madmen.

"Little wife-woman, you must learn. Variety! There lies the magic. 'Tis
the golden key. 'Tis the toy that amuses. Without it in the wife, the
man is a Turk; with it, he is her slave, and faithful. A wife must be
many wives. If you would have your husband's love you must be all women
to him. You must be ever new, with the dew of newness ever sparkling, a
flower that never blooms to the fulness that fades. You must be a garden
of flowers, ever new, ever fresh, ever different. And in your garden the
man must never pluck the last of your posies.

"Listen, little wife-woman. In the garden of love is a snake. It is the
commonplace. Stamp on its head, or it will destroy the garden. Remember
the name. Commonplace. Never be too intimate. Men only seem gross. Women
are more gross than men.--No, do not argue, little new-wife. You are an
infant woman. Women are less delicate than men. Do I not