"If that isn't just like a woman!" interrupted her companion, thinking he knew what Winifred was trying to say. "Women must have it in words. You want Philip to chatter away like a society man. He will talk fast enough when you quit your foolishness and give him a chance."
"I only wanted to say that he is undemonstrative," explained the girl, flaming red. "I should think that if he—oh, but I am glad he does not speak!" she interrupted herself, vehemently, remembering her brother's peril. "He must not speak!"
"Don't allow any false pride to come between you," urged the doctor. "Nothing kills a man's love so quickly as indifference, real or feigned."
"Do you think so?" She was glad to be impersonal again. "I imagined a little indifference piqued a man to further effort."
"The heat of propinquity feeds the flame of love," oracularly.
"I do not agree with you there, Doctor. I think men grow tired of women's solicitude and company."
"Of their wives?"
Winifred nodded.
"Precious few have the experience! But I agree with you that most married people see too much of each other. Men seem to realize the fact. That is why they go on hunting and fishing trips. Do they hunt? A few of the party, but the rest sit around and enjoy themselves, because they are a party of men. Women will never understand this feeling—this insulation, so to speak; it is the cause of much of the unhappiness we see. Most men fall short of the standard a woman demands from her husband. The first rapturous love, with its utterance and reciprocity, is expected to last after years of intimacy. In love, as in a dinner, comes the gradual relaxation, the ease of well-being, which is the greatest compliment (if she but knew it) to a woman's power to evoke and to hold love. She has not lost it; to reiterate what is a self-evident fact seems to the man unnecessary. A happy married life is one of content, comradeship, loyalty. Words are not needed where such conditions exist."
"I'll remember all you have said," sighed the girl, "but I shall never have an opportunity to prove it!"