"What does she think of Mrs. Adams?"
Bessie shrugged her shoulders significantly.
"Sue has to have her out at their farm. Well, they say she was pretty gay herself,—engaged to three men at once,—one of them turned up in Torso last year. Tom was very polite to him, elaborately polite; but he left town very soon, and she seemed dazed…. I guess she has reason to be afraid of her husband. He looks sometimes—well, I shouldn't like to have Rob look at me that way, not for half a second!"
The two women clothed the brilliant Kentuckian with all the romance of unbridled passion. "He sends to Alabama every week for the jasmine Mrs. Adams wears—fancy!"
"Really! Oh, men! men!"
"It's probably her fault—she can't hold him."
That was the simple philosophy which they evolved about marriage,—men were uncertain creatures, only partly tamed, and it was the woman's business to "hold" them. So much the worse for the women if they happened to be tied to men they could not "hold." Isabelle, remembering on one occasion the flashing eyes of the Kentuckian, his passionate denunciation of mere commercialism in public life, felt that there might be some defence for poor Tom Darnell,—even in his flirtation with the "common" Mrs. Adams.
Then the two friends went deeper and talked husbands, both admiring, both hilariously amused at the masculine absurdities of their mates.
"I hate to see poor Rob so harassed with bills," Bessie confided. "It is hard for him, with his tastes, poor boy. But I don't know what I can do about it. When he complains, I tell him we eat everything we have, and I am sure I never get a dress!"
Isabelle, recollecting the delicious suppers she had had at the Falkners's, thought that less might be eaten. In her mother's house there had always been comfort, but strict economy, even after the hardware business paid enormous profits. This thrift was in her blood. Bessie had said to Rob that Isabelle was "close." But Isabelle only laughed at Bessie when she was in these moods of dejection, usually at the first of the month. Bessie was so amusing about her troubles that she could not take her seriously.