"G., that is a wonderful creature, that new secretary of mine--have you noticed her yet?" she said later on to her nephew when they had finished the serious part of their luncheon, and she had rung her enamelled bell for the automatic entrance of the servants from behind the screen--they were only allowed in the room to change the courses at this meal. Numbers of politicians and diplomats frequently dropped in and preferred to discuss affairs with their hostess alone. "No--not much," Mr. Strobridge admitted when they were again by themselves and coffee had come. "I thought she did my letter to the _Times_ remarkably well, though." "She has not done anything badly yet--when she makes a mistake in social trifles she always realises it, and corrects herself. Her reading aloud was grotesque at first, but I have never had to tell her how to pronounce a word twice. I lay traps for her; she is as smart as paint and as deep as a well." "A treasure indeed--" but Mr. Strobridge's voice was absent, he was uninterested and was still smarting under the annoyance of the situation created by his wife. Of course he could not make her stay at home by force--and he hated the idea of Ganymede and the bare legs. He reverted to the topic once more. "I would really rather not go to see the freakish crew to-night," he said. "Beatrice is doing it merely from obstinacy; she is not like Hebe Vermont, a ridiculous _poseuse_, crazy for notoriety; she is a refined creature generally, though wearying. This is just to defy me." "As I have always told you, G., you should never have married, you are made for an ardent and devoted lover, with a suitable change of inamorata every six months. In the rôle of husband you are--frankly--a little ridiculous! You have no authority. As Miss Bush put it just now about something else, you usually act from good nature, not from a sense of justice; and Beatrice snaps her fingers at you and goes her own way." "I don't mind as a rule--indeed, I am grateful to her for doing so. Can there be anything more tedious and bourgeois than the recognised relation of husband and wife? The only things which make intimacy with a woman agreeable are difficulty and intermittency. Bee fortunately expects nothing from me, and I expect nothing from her, beyond acting in a manner suitable to her race and station, and I don't think Ganymede in his original costume at an Artist Models' ball a harmonious part for my wife or a Thorvil to adopt." "You don't know how to manage her, and you are too indifferent to try--so you had better swallow your outraged dignity and come with me in my box after all. Läo will be there and you can sit and whisper in the back of it." And Lady Garribardine lit her cigarette, but Mr. Strobridge protested in whimsical distress: