“I don’t,” said her husband, with an amused chuckle; “your variableness is your greatest charm. Provided a woman has one or two solid essentials of character at bottom, all this change on the surface is but fascinating. Your wider range of feelings and emotions makes you more interesting than men. For instance,—to find you always a placid, smiling doll would bore me to death; but when I lay my fingers on the handle of my door I never know what I may find within. There may be a young tomboy climbing over the furniture; or an elderly young prude sitting stiffly, with a book in hand, who will draw herself up and look at me through imaginary spectacles when I speak to her; or there may be a fashionable young lady in high-heeled shoes and an elaborate gown, who will turn up her nose at my rough coat; or there may be a motherly young person, who will warn me against the perils of the pipe and the bottle; or there may be a demure young kitten, who will creep into my arms and let me fondle her to my heart’s content.”
Nina was listening in profound attention. “And which do you prefer?” she asked, when he finished.
“The last, I think, though all are well enough in their turn.”
“Well, there’s some queerness about men, too,” said Nina, taking up the cudgels for her sex.
“Far queerer than women, my dear, and with more of a strain of the brute. However, every woman, be she saint or angel, has in her a scrap of devilry.”
“’Steban!” she said, reproachfully.
“She has, birdie; latent or patent, it’s there all the same; and a man who undertakes to govern a woman without recognising that fact is an idiot.”
“Men don’t govern women. Women govern them.”
“Do they?” he said, amiably.
“You speak with authority,” she said, jealously. “You have always pretended that you didn’t know anything about any women but Mrs. Danvers and me.”