s. She doesn't know herself
what she is going to do, and is frequently more astounded than anyone
else at what she does do. It's a lot harder being a woman than a man.

So--women know men better than men know women, and are rather like the
little boy's definition of a friend: "A friend is a feller who knows all
about you, and likes you anyhow."

We do like them, dreadfully. Sometimes women have sighed and wondered
what the house would be like without overcoats thrown about in the hall,
and every closet full of beloved old ragged clothes and shoes, and cigar
ashes over things, and wild cries for the ancient hat they gave the
gardener last week to weed in. But quite recently the women of this
country and a lot of other countries have found out what even temporary
absence means. A house without a man in it is as nice and tidy and
peaceful and attractive and cheerful as a grave in a cemetery. It is as
pleasant as Mark Twain's celebrated combination of rheumatism and St.
Vitus dance, and as empty as a penny-in-the-slot chocolate machine in a
railway station.

Not so very long ago there was a drawing in one of the magazines. It
showed a row of faces, men with hooked noses, with cauliflower ears,
with dish-faces, and flat faces, with smallpox scars, with hare lips.
And underneath it said: "Never mind, every one of them is somebody's
darling."

Women don't really care how their men look. But they want to look up to
them--which is a reason I haven't given before for their sex
superiority. It is really forced on them! And they want them kind and
even a bit patronizing. Also they want them _well_, because a sick man
can come the closest thing in the world to biting the hand that feeds
him. And loyal, of course, and not too tidy--and to be hungry at meals.
And not to be too bitter about going out in the evenings.

And the one thing they do not want is to have their men know how well
they understand them. It is one of their pet little-boy conceits, this
being misunderstood. It has survived from the time of that early
punishment when each and every one of them contemplated running off and
going to sea. Most of them still contemplate that running off. They
visualize great spaces, and freedom, and tropic isles, and--well, you
know. "Where there ain't no Ten Commandments and a man can raise a
thirst." (You know, Irvin!)

Yes, they contemplate it every now and then, and then they go home, and
put on a fresh collar for dinner, and