“Seriously,” demanded Miss Rittingway, “at what age do you consider a woman to be at her best?” “At the age when she meets the man who falls in love with her.” [Illustration] “Mrs. Rudderson is one of those women who always seem to find it easy to vindicate their age. But I shall ask you another question. You see, there was something about the girl’s family which the girl should have told to any one whom she was to marry, and when the engagement actually was fixed, Mrs. Rudderson found that the girl had neither the courage nor the character to tell it. Mrs. Rudderson herself would have felt bound to tell it to any one but Crimwell. You can see how telling it to Crimwell would look. Even Crimwell must have known that Mrs. Rudderson was in love with him. What do you think Mrs. Rudderson should have done?” “She should have told Crimwell.” “She didn’t. She couldn’t. The thing which should have been told was nothing against the girl, and Mrs. Rudderson gave her a handsome wedding last June.” “That is typical realism,” I said, “perhaps typical life; for there is no hero, no villain, a heroine who should have known better, and an _ingénue_ without a conscience; and as for living happily ever after—” “Oh, I believe the match will be a great success! And Mrs. Rudderson is to marry Senator Wrensel. I saw her at Newport and she was looking her best.” “That is what I like about the modern woman. She is so beautifully adjustable. To be sure, it has been the office of women from the beginning to acquire adjustability, and every uncynical person has resented the demands which have been made on this quality. But the modern woman, in a greater degree than any of her predecessors, enjoys the graces of chance, knows how to turn defeat into victory. She can marry the wrong man and never even let him know it. She can marry the right man and not upset him by making that too plain either. She can elude marriage altogether and make that seem not merely manifest destiny but a triumph of beneficent fate. She can be self-respectingly married and enchantingly single—” Miss Rittingway checked me with a look. “A man,” she said, “not only is greatly hampered in his view of these things, but he always appears to resent a woman’s ability to dominate social circumstances. It really distresses him to find that his initiation is not a finality, to discover that her last word is more potent than his first.” “A cruel tirade,” I declared, “when I was only expressing my admiring astonishment or something of that import. As for her last word, even when you don’t say it—” At this I saw the Judge coming back. “Judge,” I called down to him, “Miss Rittingway was just saying that she would like to have from you a judicial opinion on chaperons.”