"Oh, my dear, that heavenly thing about the scrubbing brush! Isn't she priceless—your mother? And she really likes Roger?"
"Crazy about him—thinks him too good for me."
And so they came to talk about the really important subject—Letty's marriage—Roger's wisdom and kindness and generosity. It amused and delighted Nan to hear her friend talking of men from the point of view of a person who owned one. Mrs. Lewis, who had long ago been obliged to part from an impossible husband, had always been a little more aloof from men, a little more contemptuous of them than of women; and Letitia, although her life was occupied with nothing else, had regarded them as an exciting, possibly hostile and certainly alien tribe. Now it was wonderful to hear her identify herself with a man's point of view— "We think—" "We feel—"
Not for a long time did the old remote tone creep in. They were speaking of men in general, and Letitia said suddenly:
"Tell me something, Nan—you have brothers—do you think the cleverest of them are a little silly about women?"
Nan's heart gave a leap. Letitia was looking intent.
"Running after women, you mean?"
"Oh, no!" Letty was quite shocked at the suggestion. "No, I mean believing everything they say. Roger repeats the most fatuous things women say to him, as if they had any importance."
Letitia twisted her eyebrows in distress only half comic.
Nan hesitated; she knew just the sort of thing Letitia must have in mind.