"We do," said Gilly. "In fact we're in the habit of turning them to the uses of allegory, Amaranth. I may say that we are coming to regard Mrs. Freere as a comparative reformation--as the irreducible minimum. If only Harry wouldn't wander from Freere's wife!" "But the man's got a wife of his own!" cried Amaranth. "Yes, but we're dealing with practical possibilities," Gilly insisted. "And, from that point of view, his own wife really doesn't count." "And yet Vivien Wellgood--!" The Nun relapsed into a silence which was meant to express bewilderment, though she was not bewildered, having too keen a memory of her own achievement. "Oh, you really understand it better than that, Doris," said Billy. "Harry can make it seem a tremendous thing--while it lasts. Andy's fault is that he never makes things seem tremendous. He just makes them seem natural. His way is safer; it takes longer, but it lasts longer too. Neither of them is the ideal man, you know. Andy wants an occasional hour of Harry--" "Dangerously long!" the Nun opined. "And Harry ought to have seven years' penal servitude of Andy. Then you might achieve the perfectly balanced individual." "I think you're perfectly balanced, dear," said Amaranth, and thereby threw her husband into sorest confusion, and the rest of the company into uncontrolled mirth. Moreover the Nun must needs add, with her most innocent expression, "Just what I've always found him, Amaranth!" "Oh, hang it--when I was trying to talk sense!" poor Billy expostulated. His bride's remark--admirably bridal in character--choked Billy's philosophising in its hour of birth. The trend of the conversation was diverted, the picture of the perfectly balanced man never painted. Else there might have emerged the interesting and agreeable paradox that the perfectly balanced man was he who knew when to lose his balance, when to kick the scales away for an hour, when to stop thinking of anybody except himself, when to sink consideration in urgency, pity in desire, affection in love. All this, of course, only for an hour--and in the right company. It must be allowed that the perfect balance is a rare phenomenon.