your nose, he always thought you had a cold. Which is all very nice
about a brother; but in a husband ..."

Something that Eleanor did with her shoulders, the way she blew out her
smoke and twisted her mouth around, caught Frederica's eye. "What did
you mean by that?" she asked. "Oh, I know you didn't say anything."

Eleanor got up restlessly, squared the cushions on her _chaise longue_,
tapped her cigarette ash into a receiver and said that Rose was happy
enough now, anyway, if looks were anything to go by; hesitated again,
and finally answered Frederica's question.

"Why," she said, "whenever I hear a woman miaouling about being
misunderstood, I always want to tell her she doesn't know her luck. Wait
till she marries a man who really does understand--too well. Let her see
how she likes it, whenever she turns loose and gets--going a little, to
have him look interested, as if he were taking notes, and begin asking
questions that are--a little too intelligent. How does she think it'll
feel never to know, _never_--I mean that, that she isn't
being--experimented on!"

It was a rather horrible idea, Frederica didn't try to deny it. But not
being understood wasn't very agreeable either. What did they want then?

Eleanor laughed. "Did you ever think," she asked, "that one of these
regular stage husbands would be rather satisfactory? Terribly
particular, you know, and bossy and domineering. The kind that discovers
a letter or a handkerchief or sees you going into some other man's
'rooms' and gets frightfully jealous, and denounces you without giving
you a chance to explain, and drags you round by the hair and threatens
to kill you? And then discovers--in the last act, you know,--that you
were perfectly innocent all the while, and repents all over the place
and begs you to forgive him and take him back; and you do? Do you
suppose any of the men we know would be capable of acting like that?
Don't you think we'd like it if they were? Not if they really did those
things, perhaps, but if we thought they might?"

Frederica was amused, but didn't think there was much to that. Of
course, if the play was very thrilling, and you liked the leading man,
you might build yourself into the romance somehow. But when it came to
the real thing ...

"No, there is something in it," Eleanor insisted. "There's something you
can't get in any other way. Whom do you think I'd pick," she asked
suddenly, "for the happiest wife I know? Edith Well