"With what results?" asked Mr. Kesterton.
"The battles, of course, are lost; but what does that matter? The process stimulates his chivalrous instincts, and so increases his attachment to me. It is far more important that a woman's husband should think that he knows better than she does, than that the world should see that he doesn't."
The three men fully agreed with Lady Farley.
"The sole duty of woman is to be charming," she continued in her pretty drawl, "and if only the women of to-day would do their hair properly instead of letting their heads run upon their wrongs, and would study how to amuse men instead of how to solve life-problems, there would soon be no wrongs and no life problems left."
"Also women would not talk about Art with a capital A," agreed Paul, "Art with a capital A always bores me."
"My experience is that a woman's heart has no he in it when she spells it with a capital A," said Isabel wisely.
"I don't know how it is," mused Lady Farley, putting down her tea-cup, "but women, who spell abstract nouns with capital letters, generally seem independent of such artificial aids to beauty as soap and water and hair brushes."
Mr. Kesterton smiled; Lady Farley amused him extremely. "Then doesn't Milady claim equal rights with men?" he asked.
Milady raised her delicate eyebrows in well-bred surprise. "Of course not; why should I? The cleverest woman should be ready to knock under to the stupidest man if necessary—or at any rate to make him think that she does."
"I am shocked, Lady Farley, to hear you inculcating deceitfulness."