"Oh, Del, do think of something else!" exclaimed Lynn a little crossly. "Men, men, men—and marriage, marriage, marriage! Do let us think and talk of something else."
"Very well, my dear, we'll talk of myself. I wanted to get up a flirtation with Mr. Amherst this winter and he didn't seem to respond at all. So I immediately thought that he must be interested in someone else and, as he was always calling on you, naturally I thought"—
"Men again!"
"Not men but a man. Don't you perceive the delicate distinction? Well, as I was saying, Mr. Amherst didn't seem a bit interested in me, charming though I am and was—what a mercy old Tom is stone deaf!—and I was extremely puzzled. I didn't like to be too pointed in my attentions"—
"I do wish, Del, that you wouldn't talk in that way. It sets my teeth on edge to hear a married woman speak in the way you do. Why don't you"—
"Stay at home and attend to my house and children? So I do; but not being altogether a fossil yet I want to do something else at times. Isn't that natural at my age?"
"Quite natural at your age, and there is just the weak point of a marriage like yours. If you had married somebody you really cared about, other men wouldn't interest you."
"Not for the first year or so, no. After that, they would. I might not like them so well as I did my husband, but I should like them and want them to like me. Yes, and I should want them to fall in love with me, too, so long as they didn't tell me about it and insist on making unpleasant scenes. Of course, in that case, they would go, just as they do, now. You know that, Lynn."
"Yes, I know that. You are very careful, Del. I suppose it is all right and quite harmless in its way, but I can't say that I approve of it. What is the sense of having two or three men always sighing around because they can't marry you?"
"What's the sense of music or flowers or strawberry tarts? I like them and they agree with me. You know there is a lot of misconception with regard to the real tastes of a young woman after she marries. If she is a person who grows and develops she must, of necessity, like many things besides her husband and children. Now here is a case in point. Because I am devoted to my own children is that any reason why I should not be fond of other people's children? As a matter of fact, I don't care much for any children but my own; but, if I did, wouldn't that be blameless and even praiseworthy? So with men. I should always like them all even if I were eighty and had been married all my life."