Now you know better far than I knew at the time why our happy little family went to Brooklyn, took the house in Bedford Avenue which we could ill afford if we were to save any money, and joined St. Mary’s. A couple of years after we were married my wife stopped me when I was telling her what had happened at the office that day, as was my habit. “You ought to leave all those things outside when you come home,” said she. She had read this in a book somewhere, I guess. It was a new idea to me. “Why should I?” said I. “Home is a place for happiness, with all the sordidness shut out,” explained she. “Those sordid things ought not to touch our life together.” This sounded all right. “It seemed to me,” stammered I, apologetically, “that my career, the way I was getting on, that our bread and butter-- Well, I thought we ought to kind of talk it over together.” “Oh, I do sympathize with you,” said, or rather quoted, she. “But my place is to soothe and smooth away the cares of business. You ought to try not to think of them at home.” “But what _would_ I think about?” cried I, much perplexed. “Why, my business is all I’ve got. It’s the most important thing in the world to us. It means our living. At least that’s the way the thing looks to me.” “You ought to think at home about the higher side of life--the intellectual side.” “But my business _is_ my intellectual side,” I said. “And I can’t for the life of me see why thinking about things that don’t advance us and don’t pay the bills is better than thinking about things that do.” It seemed to me that this looking on my business as something to be left on the mud-scraper at the entrance indicated a false idea of it got somewhere. So I added somewhat warmly: “There’s nothing low or bad about my business.” And that was the truth at the time. “I don’t know anything about it,” replied she with the gentle patience of her superior refinement and education. “And I don’t want to know. Those things don’t interest me. And I think, Godfrey”--very sweetly, with her cheek against mine--“the reason husbands and wives often grow apart is that the husband gives his whole mind to his business and doesn’t develop the higher side of his nature--the side that appeals to a woman and satisfies her.” This touched my sense of humor mildly. “My father gives his mind to one of those high sides,” said I, “and we nearly starved to death.” “Your father!” exclaimed she in derisive disgust. “My father,” said I cheerfully, “he does nothing but read, talk, and think politics.” “Politics! _That_ isn’t on the higher side. Women don’t care anything about _that_.” “Well, what do they care about?” I inquired. “About music and literature--and those artistic things.”