"I have promised my husband to go out with him."
"Your husband!" The voice of Mrs. Talbot betrayed too plainly her contempt of husbands.
"Yes, my husband." Mrs. Emerson let her voice dwell with meaning on the word.
The other ladies looked at each other for a moment or two with meaning glances; then Mrs. Talbot remarked, in a quiet way, but with a little pleasantry in her voice, as if she were not right clear in regard to her young friend's state of feeling,
"Oh dear! these husbands are dreadfully in the way, sometimes! Haven't you found it so, Mrs. Lloyd?"
The eyes of Mrs. Emerson were turned instantly to the face of her new acquaintance. She saw a slight change of expression in her pale face that took something from its agreeable aspect. And yet Mrs. Lloyd smiled as she answered, in a way meant to be pleasant,
"They are very good in their place."
"The trouble," remarked Mrs. Talbot, in reply, "is to make them keep their place."
"At our feet." Mrs. Emerson laughed as she said this.
"No," answered Mrs. Lloyd—"at our sides, as equals."