"Oh, which table—well, farther back, perhaps!"
I came down to earth after that, for getting acquainted with the caprices of a man's appetite is distinctly an earthly joy. Yet it certainly comes well within the joy class, for nothing else gives you the comfortable sense of possession that an intimate knowledge of his likes and dislikes bestows.
Just after the "each-hour-a-pearl" stage you begin to feel that you have a right to know whether he takes one lump or two! And the homely, every-day joys are decidedly the best. You don't tremble at the sounds of a man's rubber heels at the door, perhaps, after you're so well acquainted with him that you've set him a hasty supper on the kitchen table, or your fingers have toyed with his over the dear task of baiting a mouse-trap together—but he gets a dearness in this phase which a pedestal high as Eiffel Tower couldn't afford.—It is this dearness which makes you endure to see Prince Charming's coronet melted down into ducats to buy certified milk!
"And what are—those?" Maitland Tait asked, after the tea-service was before us, and I had poured his cup. He was looking about the place with a frank interest, and his gaze had lighted upon a group of marcelled, manicured manikins at a near-by table. They were chattering and laughing in an idly nervous fashion.
I dropped in two lumps of sugar and passed him his cup.
"They are wives," I answered.
"What?"
"Just wives."
Being English, it took him half a second to smile—but when he did I forgave him the delay.
"Just wives? Then that means not mothers, nor helpmeets, nor—"