the Front soon became homogeneous. Whether he will
accept his wife's enlarged circle and new interests after the war is
over is one of the problems, but nothing is less likely than that she
will rebuild the dam, recall the adventurous waters of her
personality, empty her new brain cells, no matter how much she may
continue to love her husband and children.

VI

Nor to give up her new power. In those divisions of the bourgeoisie
where the wife is always the husband's partner, following a custom of
centuries, and who to-day is merely carrying on the business alone,
there will be no surrender of responsibilities grown precious, no
sense of apprehension of loss of personal power. But in those more
leisured circles where, for instance, a woman has been for the first
time complete mistress of all expenditures, domestic or
administrative, and of her childrens' destinies; has learned to think
and act for herself as if she were widowed in fact; and in addition
has cultivated her social sense to an extreme unprecedented in the
entire history of the bourgeoisie, she will never return to the old
status, even though she disdain feminism per se and continue to prefer
her husband to other men--that is to say, to find him more tolerable.

A young woman of this class, who until the war widowed her had been as
happy as she was favored by fortune: wealthy, well-bred, brilliantly
educated, and "elle et lui" with her husband, told me that no American
could understand the peculiarly intensive life led by a French couple
who found happiness in each other and avoided the fast sets. And
whereas what she told me would have seemed natural enough in the life
of a petite bourgeoisie, I must confess I was amazed to have it from
the lips of a clever and beautiful young woman whom life had pampered
until death broke loose in Europe.

The husband, she told me, did the thinking. Before he left home in the
morning he asked his wife what she intended to order for dinner and
altered the menu to his liking; also the list of guests, if it had
been thought well to vary their charming routine with a select
company.

Before his wife bought a new gown she submitted the style and colors
to what seems literally to have been her other half, and he solemnly
pondered over both before pronouncing his august and final opinion.

If they had children, the interest was naturally extended. His concern
in health and in illness, in play and in study, was nothing