"No I do not," answered Mrs. Mortomley promptly. "It was very well while it lasted; good, nice, peaceful, what you will, but I could no more go back to that than I could to a rattle and coral and bells. I have gone forward--I have passed that stage. We must go forward, we must travel from stage to stage till the end, whether we like the journey or not. My journey has been very pleasant, so far." "Has it been satisfactory?" asked Mrs. Werner. "Has yours?" retorted Dolly; then, without waiting for a reply, went on: "We have all our ideal life, and the real must differ from it. We have our ideal husbands, as our husbands have had their ideal wives, and the real are never like the ideal. Well, what does it matter? We would not marry our ideals now if we could, so what is the use of thinking about them. Has my life been satisfactory? you ask. Yes, I think so. I am not very old now. I am five-and-twenty, Leonora, four years younger than you, and yet I think if the whole thing were stopped this minute, if God himself said to me now, you have had your share of happiness, you have eaten all the feasts set out for you too fast, you must walk out of the sunshine and make way for some one else, I could not grumble even mentally; I have had my innings, Nora, let the future bring what it will." "You little heathen!" "Perhaps you are right," said Dolly philosophically, "Perhaps it is heathenish to love ease and pleasure and luxury, as I love them all; but, Lenny, you know I never had high aims; I should detest working for my living, or being a clergyman's wife and having to visit all sorts of miserable people, or going about as a Sister of Charity, or setting-up for a philanthropist, or a social reformer, '_Chacun à son goût_,' and it certainly would not be my _goût_ to make myself less happy than I am." "But, Dolly, do not you think you owe a duty to your husband?" "Of course I do, if you like to word your sentence in so disagreeable a manner, but I am not aware that I fail in my duty towards him. You do not think it necessary, I suppose, that I should make his shirts, or darn his socks so long as there are people to be found glad to earn a little money by drudging at such things. He has a comfortable home, and everything in it that he wants so far as I know. I never nag him as I hear many excellent wives nag their husbands. We never exchange an angry word. If I want anything, he says 'Very well, get it.' If he wants anything, I say 'Very well, do it.' Upon my word, Leonora, I cannot imagine what it is you wish, unless that I should begin to make myself disagreeable." "That is exactly what I do wish," said Mrs. Werner. "Instead of treating your husband like a spoiled child whose way is on no account to be crossed, I would have you talk with him, reason, advise, consult."