"Did you ever think, Belle, that men have difficulties to meet,—problems that we never dream of?"
"Worse than the child-bearing question?" queried Isabelle, kicking out the folds of her tea-gown with a slippered foot.
"Well, different; harder, perhaps…. Steve doesn't talk them over as he used to with me."
"Too tired. John never talks to me about business. We discuss what the last doctor thinks, and how the baby is, and whether we'll take the Jackson house or build or live at the Monopole and go abroad, and Nan Lawton's latest,—really vital things, you see! Business is such a bore."
The older woman seemed to have something on her mind and sat down again at the end of the lounge.
"By the way," Isabelle continued idly, "did you know that the Falkners were
coming to St. Louis to live? John found Rob a place in the terminal work.
It isn't permanent, but Bessie was crazy to come, and it may be an opening.
She is a nice thing,—mad about people."
"But, Isabelle," her cousin persisted, "don't you want to know the things that make your husband's life,—that go down to the roots?"
"If you mean business, no, I don't. Besides they are confidential matters,
I suppose. He couldn't make me understand…."
"They have to face the fight, the men; make the decisions that count—for character."
"Of course,—John attends to that side and I to mine. We should be treading on each other's toes if I tried to decide his matters for him!"