The Skeptic shook his head. The Philosopher shook his, thoughtfully. "It's too late," said the latter. "Her ideals are a fixed quantity now, to be reckoned with. So are his. Under any conditions there would be absolute diversity of tastes."
"I don't think there's any ideal more hopelessly fixed than the fine clothes ideal." The Skeptic looked at his wife.
"I like nice clothes," said she, smiling at him.
"So you do," he rejoined; "thank heaven! A woman who doesn't is abnormal. But when we walk down certain streets together you can see something besides the shop-windows."
"I look away so I won't want the things," confessed Hepatica.
The Skeptic laughed, and the Philosopher and I joined him.
"I passed Mrs. Hepatica the other day when she didn't see me," said the Philosopher to me. "She was staring fixedly in at a shop-window. I stole up behind her to see what held such an attraction for her.—It often lets a great light in on a friend's character, if you can see the particular object in a shop-window which fixes his longing attention. When I had discovered what she was looking at I stole away again, chuckling to myself."
"What was it?" I asked.
"I'll wager half I own that the wife of our friend the Judge wouldn't have given that window a second glance," pursued the Philosopher.
"It was probably a bargain sale of paper patterns," guessed the Skeptic. But we knew he didn't think it.