Perhaps the Average Woman is a little tiresome about her husband. She is generally charged with quoting him overmuch. I don’t think that; his opinions are often useful and nearly always sensible, but she certainly assumes a far too general interest for him as a subject upon which to dwell for long periods. Average wives of officials are much more distressingly affected in this way than other ladies are; it is quite a local peculiarity of bureaucratic centres. They cherish the delusion, I suppose, that in some degree they advance the interests of these unfortunate men by a perpetual public attitude of adoration, but I cannot believe it is altogether the case. On the contrary, I am convinced that the average official husband himself would find too much zeal in the recounting of his following remarkable traits. His obstinate and absurd devotion to duty. “In _my_ husband the Queen has a good bargain!” His remarkable youth for the post he holds,--I remember a case where my budding affection for the wife of an Assistant Secretary was entirely checked by this circumstance. The compliments paid him by his official superiors, those endless compliments. And more than anything perhaps, his extraordinary and deplorable indifference to society. “I simply can_not_ get my husband out; I am positively ashamed of making excuses for him.” When her husband is served up to me in this guise I feel my indignation rising out of all proportion to its subject, always an annoying experience. Why should I be expected to accept his foolish idea that he is superior to society, and admire it? Why should I be assumed to observe with interest whether he comes out; why indeed, so far as I am concerned, should he not eternally stay in? It comes to this that one positively admires the woman who has the reticence to let her husband make his own reputation. What offends one, I suppose, is the lack of sincerity. A very different case is that of the simple soul who says, “Tom will not allow me to have it in the house,” or “Jim absolutely refuses to let me know her.” One hears that with the warm thrill of mutual bondage; one has one’s parallel ready--the tyranny I could relate of Tiglath-Pileser! The note of grievance is primitive and natural; but the woman who butters her husband in friendly council, what excuse has she? CHAPTER XIV