The second bad husband was none too good, perhaps, in the beginning. But he had grown thoroughly tired of the life he lived at clubs and hotels, and from the very depths of his heart he longed for HOME.
He had experienced every type of flirtation which women make possible for an attractive man from his freshman college days to old age. He had come to a state of mind where he questioned if there were any really sensible girls and trustworthy wives, when he met his fate and ceased to question, and simply believed.
He believed he had met the perfect woman. He told her how he longed for a home, and he asked her to be his wife.
When she accepted him he was so happy that he simply cast all his old ideas of women to the winds, and with these ideas he cast all the wisdom which he had accumulated through his bachelorhood.
Ofttimes in the past he had said that women needed to be governed; needed a master; that they became petty tyrants if given too much respectful consideration, or when their wishes were consulted on matters of any import to the husband.
Yet in face of all the bad things this man had said about the sex, he began his married life by asking the girl he married to choose the way she preferred to live, instead of telling her how he wished to live.
Of course he had told her from the beginning of his love-making, that he was tired of having no home; that a club or a hotel, with all the comforts money could purchase, meant only four walls, and that a home with a wife and love and peace and order and system, represented his idea of heaven.
Nevertheless, when he said the wife could choose her way of living, she promptly chose a suite in an expensive hotel, and, after a year, she expressed a desire to go to Europe and stay through the London and Paris seasons.
It was with reluctance that she came home finally, for she was a beautiful girl, and she had been much admired abroad.
After their return the husband asserted his wish again for a home, and, again reluctantly, the wife consented. She spoiled it all, however, by continually talking of the distaste she had for domestic obligations.