"Nor housekeepers, nor suffragettes, nor saints, nor sinners, nor anything else that the Lord intended, nor apprehended," I finished up with a fierce suddenness, for that was what Guilford wanted me to be. "They're just wives."

He stirred his tea thoughtfully.

"That's what I find all over America," he said, but not with the air of making a discovery. "Men must work, and women must eat."

"And the sooner it's over the sooner to—the opera," I said.

He looked at me in surprise.

"Then you recognize it?" he asked.

"Recognize it? Of course I recognize it—but I'm not a fair sample. I work for my living."

He was silent for a moment, looking at the manikins with a sort of half-hearted pity.

"If they could all be induced to work they'd not be what they are—to men," he observed.

"To men?"