MRS. ALLONBY. He should persistently compromise us in public, and treat us with absolute respect when we are alone. And yet he should be always ready to have a perfectly terrible scene, whenever we want one, and to become miserable, absolutely miserable, at a moment’s notice, and to overwhelm us with just reproaches in less than twenty minutes, and to be positively violent at the end of half an hour, and to leave us for ever at a quarter to eight, when we have to go and dress for dinner. And when, after that, one has seen him for really the last time, and he has refused to take back the little things he has given one, and promised never to communicate with one again, or to write one any foolish letters, he should be perfectly broken-hearted, and telegraph to one all day long, and send one little notes every half-hour by a private hansom, and dine quite alone at the club, so that every one should know how unhappy he was. And after a whole dreadful week, during which one has gone about everywhere with one’s husband, just to show how absolutely lonely one was, he may be given a third last parting, in the evening, and then, if his conduct has been quite irreproachable, and one has behaved really badly to him, he should be allowed to admit that he has been entirely in the wrong, and when he has admitted that, it becomes a woman’s duty to forgive, and one can do it all over again from the beginning, with variations. LADY HUNSTANTON. How clever you are, my dear! You never mean a single word you say. LADY STUTFIELD. Thank you, thank you. It has been quite, quite entrancing. I must try and remember it all. There are such a number of details that are so very, very important. LADY CAROLINE. But you have not told us yet what the reward of the Ideal Man is to be. MRS. ALLONBY. His reward? Oh, infinite expectation. That is quite enough for him. LADY STUTFIELD. But men are so terribly, terribly exacting, are they not? MRS. ALLONBY. That makes no matter. One should never surrender. LADY STUTFIELD. Not even to the Ideal Man? MRS. ALLONBY. Certainly not to him. Unless, of course, one wants to grow tired of him. LADY STUTFIELD. Oh! . . . yes. I see that. It is very, very helpful. Do you think, Mrs. Allonby, I shall ever meet the Ideal Man? Or are there more than one? MRS. ALLONBY. There are just four in London, Lady Stutfield. LADY HUNSTANTON. Oh, my dear! MRS. ALLONBY. [_Going over to her_.] What has happened? Do tell me. LADY HUNSTANTON [_in a low voice_] I had completely forgotten that the American young lady has been in the room all the time. I am afraid some of this clever talk may have shocked her a little. MRS. ALLONBY. Ah, that will do her so much good!