"I wonder if a meek wife would have suited Paul," remarked Lady Farley, leisurely sipping her tea.
"I expect so," Bobby answered, "because he has chosen the other sort; just like gouty men always drink champagne and port (when their wives aren't looking)."
"I have often noticed," said Mr. Kesterton, "that men, as a rule, fall in love with the exact opposite of the type that they theoretically approve of."
"I have noticed more than that," added Lady Farley; "having selected, as you say, the exact opposite, they set about transforming the object selected into their ideal type. This seems to my ignorant mind a waste of time and trouble, when the market is overstocked with their ideal types already."
"I know what you mean," agreed Isabel, "the man who admires silent women, loses his heart to a chatterbox, and spends the rest of his mortal life in teaching her to hold her tongue."
Lady Farley nodded. "In the same way, a man who applauds female brains, is carried off his feet by a pretty fool, and then wears her and himself out by trying to educate her."
"It is stupid of men to behave like that," said Violet Thistletown.
"Not at all," argued her aunt, "it is stupid of the women not to adapt themselves."
"I don't know about that. How should you like to have to pretend to a man that you were not clever, Aunt Caroline?" inquired Isabel, who, having been married for only a few months, naturally imagined that she knew all there was to be known concerning the management of Man.
"I have already done so, my dear, for thirty years, with the utmost success. To this day my husband always insists upon fighting my battles for me."