he other. She would like to be the
Carmen of ten years ago in Henderson's eyes.

Her lord came home late, and did not dress for dinner. It was often
so, and the omission was usually not allowed to pass by Carmen without
notice, to which Henderson was sure to growl that he didn't care to be
always on dress parade. Tonight Carmen was all graciousness and warmth.
Henderson did not seem to notice it. He ate his dinner abstractedly, and
responded only in monosyllables to her sweet attempts at conversation.
The fact was that the day had been a perplexing one; he was engaged in
one of his big fights, a scheme that aroused all his pugnacity and taxed
all his resources. He would win--of course; he would smash everybody,
but he would win. When he was in this mood Carmen felt that she was like
a daisy in the path of a cyclone. In the first year of their marriage
he used to consult her about all his schemes, and value her keen
understanding. She wondered why he did not now. Did he distrust even
her, as he did everybody else? Tonight she asked no questions. She was
unruffled by his short responses to her conversational attempts; by her
subtle, wifely manner she simply put herself on his side, whatever the
side was.

In the library she brought him his cigar, and lighted it. She saw that
his coffee was just as he liked it. As she moved about, making things
homelike, Henderson noticed that she was more Carmenish than he had
seen her in a long time. The sweet ways and the simple toilet must be by
intention. And he knew her so well. He began to be amused and softened.
At length he said, in his ordinary tone, "Well, what is it?"

"What is what, dear?"

"What do you want?"

Carmen looked perplexed and sweetly surprised. There is nothing so
pitiful about habitual hypocrisy as that it never deceives anybody. It
was not the less painful now that Carmen knew that Henderson knew her to
the least fibre of her self-seeking soul, and that she felt that there
were currents in his life that she could not calculate. A man is so much
more difficult to understand than a woman, she reflected. And yet he
is so susceptible that he can be managed even when he knows he is being
managed. Carmen was not disconcerted for a moment. She replied, with her
old candor:

"What an idea! You give me everything I want before I know what it is."

"And before I know it either," he responded, with a grim smile. "Well,
what is the news today?"

"Just the same old