“I guess she’s a judge of other women’s husbands, though,” said Mrs. Wolfstein to Lady Cardington. “That child is going to devastate London.”
Now and then Lady Holme glanced towards Sir Donald and his son. They seemed as untalkative as she was. Sir Donald kept on looking towards Mrs. Wolfstein’s table. So did Leo. But whereas Leo Ulford’s eyes were fixed on Pimpernel Schley, Sir Donald’s met the eyes of Lady Holme. She felt annoyed; not because Sir Donald was looking at her, but because his son was not.
How these women talked about their husbands! Lady Cardington, who was a widow, spoke of husbands as if they were a race which was gradually dying out. She thought the modern woman was beginning to get a little tired of the institution of matrimony, and to care much less for men than was formerly the case. Being contradicted by Mrs. Trent, she gave her reasons for this belief. One was that whereas American matinee girls used to go mad over the “leading men” of the stage they now went mad over the leading women. She also instanced the many beautiful London women, universally admired, who were over thirty and still remained spinsters. Mrs. Trent declared that they were abnormal, and that, till the end of time, women would always wish to be wives. Mrs. Wolfstein agreed with her on various grounds. One was that it was the instinct of woman to buy and to rule, and that if she were rich she could now acquire a husband as, in former days, people acquired slaves—by purchase. This remark led to the old question of American heiresses and the English nobility, and to a prolonged discussion as to whether or not most women ruled their husbands.
Women nearly always argue from personal experience, and consequently Lady Cardington—whose husband had treated her badly—differed on this point from Mrs. Wolfstein, who always did precisely what she pleased, regardless of Mr. Wolfstein’s wishes. Mrs. Trent affirmed that for her part she thought women should treat their husbands as they treated their servants, and dismiss them if they didn’t behave themselves, without giving them a character. She had done so twice, and would do it a third time if the occasion arose. Sally Perceval attacked her for this, pleading slangily that men would be men, and that their failings ought to be winked at; and Miss Burns, as usual, brought the marital proceedings of African savages upon the carpet. Lady Manby turned the whole thing into a joke by a farcical description of the Private Enquiry proceedings of a jealous woman of her acquaintance, who had donned a canary-coloured wig as a disguise, and dogged her husband’s footsteps in the streets of London, only to find that he went out at odd times to visit a grandmother from whom he had expectations, and who happened to live in St. John’s Wood.
The foreign waiters, who moved round the table handing the dishes, occasionally exchanged furtive glances which seemed indicative of suppressed amusement, and the men who were lunching near, many of whom were now smoking cigarettes, became more and more intent upon Mrs. Wolfstein and her guests. As they were getting up to go into the Palm Court for coffee and liqueurs, Lady Cardington again referred to the article on the proposed school for happiness, which had apparently made a deep impression upon her.
“I wonder if happiness can be taught,” she said. “If it can—”
“It can’t,” said Mrs. Trent, with more than her usual sledge-hammer bluntness. “We aren’t meant to be happy here.”
“Who doesn’t mean us to be happy?” asked poor Lady Cardington in a deplorable voice.
“First—our husbands.”
“It’s cowardly not to be happy,” cried Miss Burns, pushing her hat over her left eye as a tribute to the close of lunch. “In a savage state you’ll always find—”