orgive each other all wrongs when they
find for dinner a _risotto a la Milanaise_. A slightly spasmodic
interest, and one not to be compared with a common taste for golf, or
motoring, or entertaining, but still it is not to be despised. It is so
difficult to pick a double interest from the welter of things that
people do alone; it is so difficult for wives truly to sympathize with
games, business, politics, newspapers, inventions; most women hate all
that. And it is still more difficult, just because man is man and
master, for him really to care for the fashions, for gossip, for his
wife's school friends, and especially her relations, for tea parties,
tennis tournaments at the Rectory, lectures at the Mutual Improvement
Association, servants' misdeeds, and growths in the garden. Most men
hate all that. People hold amazing conversations:

She: "Do you know, dear, I saw Mrs. Johnson again to-day with that man."

He: (Trying hard) "Oh! yes, the actor fellow, you mean."

She: (Reproachfully) "No, of course not, I never said he was an actor.
He's the new engineer at the mine, the one who came from Mexico."

He: "Oh! yes, that reminds me, did you go to the library and get me
Roosevelt's book on the Amazon?"

She: "No dear, I'm sorry I forgot. You see I had such a busy day, and I
couldn't make up my mind between those two hats. The very big one and
the very small one. _You_ know. Now tell me what you _really_ think--"
and so on.

It is exactly like a Tchekoff play. They make desperate efforts to be
interested in each other's affairs, and sometimes they succeed, for they
manage to stand each other's dullness. They assert their egotism in
turns. He tells the same stories several times. He takes her for a
country walk and forgets to give her tea, and she never remembers that
he hates her dearest friend Mabel. Where the rift grows more profound is
when trifles such as these are overlooked, and particularly where a man
has work that he loves, or to which he is used, which is much the same
thing. In early days the woman's attitude to a man's work varies a good
deal, but she generally suspects it a little. She may tolerate it
because she loves him, and all that is his is noble. Later, if this work
is very profitable, or if it is work which leads to honour, she may take
a pride in it, but even then she will generally grudge it the time and
the energy it costs. She loves him, not his work. She will seldom
confess this, even to he