"My dear," I responded feebly, "my dear, don't you realize what an awful old chestnut that neglected wife story is? Mr. Hartley says they all use it ... it is the cardinal excuse, the subterfuge all married women resort to, to justify their own infidelities." "Did--did Mr. Hartley intimate----?" "O, no! Mr. Hartley betrayed none of your confidences ... but, tell me honestly ..."--I leaned forward and clasped my knees to better accentuate my words--"do you really expect a man of the world to believe that--or care whether you are neglected or not? You know that men gossip and bandy women's names about their clubs--not in so many damning words, but with a knowing wink, a shrug of the shoulder, this head-shake, or, 'by pronouncing some doubtful phrase ... or such ambiguous giving out' ... my dear ... I have a rare collection of mash-notes which my actor-husband has from time to time tossed laughingly into my lap. Their character varies like the colour of the paper on which they are written. There is the white, the pale blue, and several shades of lavender.... The actor's world is full of lavender ladies of the Bovary type: the wonder of it is that so many of them 'get away with it' as you have so elegantly expressed it. Suppose _you_ don't get away with it ... suppose your husband divorces you ... what will become of you? How will you live? You're not equipped to make your own living. You couldn't even typewrite--like your sister. Suppose I were to divorce my husband, naming you as co-respondent: do you flatter yourself he would marry you? And let us assume that he did: How long do you think it would last? He is a poor man. His profession is a purely speculative one. His income is assured for only two weeks at a time, except in rare instances. He couldn't give you the jewels, the furs, the motors and the luxuries you now enjoy. How long do you believe your mad passion would endure, stripped of little appurtenances like wine suppers and suites of rooms in the best hotels?... Perhaps you'd become an actress like so many women who look on the stage as an open sesame to a life of immorality.... Like so many women with a screw loose in their moral machinery ... no, don't you say a word! This is my scene--and I am going to hold the centre of the stage for once in my career!... I know your kind, mi-lady.... You belong to that great class of over-fed and under-bred women who make life so hard for the rest of their sex. You're one of the wasters; you waste what does not rightfully belong to you; what you usurp in your greediness, in your pandering to your vanities, in your compromise with your better instincts, in your connivance with the very devil who finds some mischief still for idle hands to do! You stimulate your passions with alcohol and mistake the fumes for love! You haven't the courage to come out and be a genuine prostitute, but you ply the trade in the rôle of an adulteress. For God's sake, wake up! Look