Yes, on the whole I was satisfied to accept my Dorothy's smiling rebuke with a smile; and the sequel of the incident showed me that I was wise in this respect; for I found her the next day looking with admiring eyes at our Temple.
Our Temple was my masterpiece, and it was the “feature” which our visitor had, without meaning it, commended so extravagantly when she had assured us that her friend Count Von Bosche would not have approved of it.
“I think, my child, now that I come to think of it, that your single-sentence retort respecting the value of the Count's possible non-approval was more effective than my tirade about the vulgarity of German taste in German gardens, especially that one at Honnef-on-Rhine, where I was jocularly deluged with Rhine water. You know how to hit off such things. You are a born sniper.”
“Sniping is a woman's idea of war,” said Dorothy.
“I don't like to associate women and warfare,” said I shaking my head.
“That is because of your gentle nature, dear,” said she with all the smoothness of a smoothing-iron fresh from a seven-times heated furnace. “But isn't it strange that in most languages the word War is a noun feminine?”
“They were always hard on woman in those days,” said I vaguely. “But they're making up for it now.”
“What are you talking about?” she cried. “Why, they're harder than ever on women in this country. Haven't they just insisted on enchaining them with the franchise, with the prospect of seats in the House of Commons? Oh, Woman—poor Woman!—poor, poor Woman—what have you done to deserve this?”