“And then,” I said, quite normal again, “there are other things besides looks and character. There’s employment, for example. Do you want him to be rich and idle or do you want him to be busy? And if busy, what do you want him to do?” “Yes,” said Rose, “I want him to be busy. I want him to be away all the day, so that his return will be an event to both of us. I don’t believe in husbands muddling about at home between breakfast and dinner. I’m sure father would have been happier if his studio had been somewhere else and he had to go away to it and remain away. He got tired of the house—I can see now, although I didn’t know then—instead of looking on it as a harbour of refuge after his work was done. That’s what made him so restless and forced him to go away so much: that and his love of seeing new and beautiful things. “It must be dreadful,” she mused, “to be an artist and have such a keen eye for lovely effects and know that they can never be really reproduced in paint. I wish we knew more about Turner and what he felt. He came nearer getting it than anyone, I suppose; but he must have suffered agonies of disappointment and failure. The worst of it is, he seemed never to let anyone know him, so we have no evidence.” “Well, don’t go to the opposite extreme,” I said, “and marry a sailor, for you’d hardly see him at all.” “Oh no,” she said, “I shouldn’t do that. I should want him to come back every evening, and stay back.” “Then no doctor need apply,” I said. “No, I’m afraid not,” said Rose. “I want all his attention when he has finished with business. That’s an essential. And a steady home that I can make like a home, and go on improving. With a big nursery.” “In the country, or London?” I asked. “In the country,” said Rose. “But not too far out. A place where you can hear the train come in, and go a little way across the fields to meet him and take away the fish basket.” “Ah!” I said, “now I know. He’s something in the city.” “I don’t mind if he is,” said Rose, “so long as he comes back every evening, and loves me, and makes enough money for me to have a hansom everywhere when I go to town, and to take the children to the sea in the summer. That’s my idea of a husband.” “I hope you may find him,” I said, “and having found him, keep him simple and deeply rooted. And you must make me a promise. Will you?” “Of course.” “Let no one but me supply that big nursery with its rocking-horse.” So we talked; not once but many times. And this Prince Charming in the guise of a businessman with a tall hat, catching the 9.15 up and the 5.46 down, became a joke with us: one of us at any rate, in the English way, which avoids facing facts, making haste to joke for fear of having to cry.