instinct to look up, but she can't look up to a man who is
figuratively at her feet. She may struggle against the man who attempts
to conquer her by main force, but she enjoys being conquered just the
same, and it takes a great burden off her soul to be able to lay her
head on a broad, masculine shoulder and to know that every affair in
life is going to be settled and decided for her.

"She may talk about thinking for herself and voting and all that, but
she is always glad enough to sit back and be thought for and voted for
by some man who has magnetized her into believing him the incarnation of
intelligence. And any man can do it. If the average husband only had a
little more nerve and fewer nerves, he could master his wife with one
hand and his eyes shut. The heathen Turk can get along better with a
whole harem full of women than the civilized man gets along with one
lone, lorn wife. It isn't because he's any wiser or cleverer or kinder,
but because the first Turk learned the short cut to managing a woman and
passed the secret down in the family. They don't ask them to marry them
over there, they order them; they don't request them to run an errand or
sew on a button, they merely wave their hands and the women fight for
the privilege of obeying. They have known for ages what the white man
never seems to have learned, that the way to take a woman is by storm
and the way to hold her is by force and that any man can manage any
woman if he only knows how and has the audacity and the courage--What
are you trying to do, Mr. Travers?"

[Illustration: "I'VE got the courage at last--and the audacity." _Page
99_]

"I'm taking a short cut to the divan," replied the bachelor, sitting
down beside the widow, "and I've got the courage at last----"

"How dare you, Billy Travers!"

"And the audacity----"

"Stop! Stop!"

"And the nerve----"

"Mr. Taylor," announced the maid, appearing suddenly between the
portieres at this critical moment.

"Oh, mercy!" cried the widow, "and my hair is just----"

"Am I intruding?" asked a fresh-faced young man, entering briskly
between the portieres.

"Not at all, Bobby," said the widow sweetly, holding out one hand and
feeling her back hair with the other. "You arrived just at
the--psychological moment. We have been talking about you for the last
half hour."

VIII

AFTER LOVE----(?)

"WHY is it," asked the widow, swinging her chatelaine pensively as she
strolled down the a