ve done away with all this misery: Fred
could have married Miss Brown, and gone on living happily at intervals
with Mrs Smith.'

'But what would Mrs Smith do in the intervals? She happens to have found
no counter attraction.'

'Well, perhaps if duogamy had been the custom, she would have looked out
for one,' said Amoret, 'most married women could find one alternative,
I'm sure. But, any way, no plan is perfect, and there are lots of wives
who wouldn't want a second husband at all, and who would be only too
glad of a restful period, when no dinners need be ordered. Then take the
case of the Robinsons: Dick Jones adores Mrs Robinson and is utterly
wretched because he can only be a friend to her. She is very fond of
him, and fond of her husband too; she could make them both very happy if
they would share her.'

'I have often felt I could make two men happy,' said Isolda. 'Some of my
best points are wasted on Launcelot. Then, too, he never tires of the
country and his beloved golf, but I do, and when one of my fits of
London-longing were to come over me I'd just run up to town and have a
ripping time with my London husband.'

'Without feeling you were doing anything wrong,' supplemented Amoret,
whose apparent experience of the qualms of conscience struck me as being
rather suspicious.

'It's no good, girls,' said Miranda, suddenly. 'It's no good--duogamy's
off! Think of the servants!'

'Horrors, the servants!' said Isolda, blankly.

'Yes, I was afraid you would soon find out the one weak spot,' said
Amoret, regretfully. 'Of course it would be awful having to cope with
two lots of servants. One husband could afford to keep four or five,
say, and the other only one or two, and each lot would get out of hand
during the wife's absence.'

'So instead of having a perfectly deevy time with two husbands vying
with each other in pleasing one, one would have a fearsome existence
constantly breaking-in minions. Directly one had got A.'s servants into
order, it would be time to go back to B. and do the same there.'

'No; thank you,' said Isolda, firmly, 'one lot is enough for me. I've
said dozens of times, for the servant reason alone, that I wish I had
never married. It would be madness to actually double one's burden.
You can strike me off the list of duogamists, Amoret, until the Servant
Question is solved by some new invention of machinery, or the
importation of Chinese.'

'Perhaps,' Amoret suggested hopefully, 'your a