"That certainly would seem hopeful in the case of an ordinary woman--myself, for instance," she said. "But Wilhelmina is not an ordinary woman. She always would do things differently from other people. I don't want to make you more unhappy than you are, but I honestly believe that Wilhelmina is going to set a new fashion. She is going to try and re-establish the life domestic amongst the upper classes." "She always was such a reformer," he sighed. Lady Peggy nodded sympathetically. "Of course, one can't tell how it may turn out," she continued, "but at present they seem to have turned life into a sort of Garden of Eden, and do you know I can't help fancying that there isn't the slightest chance for the serpent. Wilhelmina is so fearfully obstinate." "The thing will cloy!" he declared. "I fancy not," she answered. "You see, they don't live on sugar-plums. Victor Macheson is by way of being a masterful person, and Wilhelmina is only just beginning to realize the fascination of being ruled. Frankly, Gilbert, I don't think there's the slightest chance for you!" He sighed. "I am afraid you are right," he said regretfully. "I began to realize it last night, when we went into the library unexpectedly, and Wilhelmina blushed. No self-respecting woman ought to blush when she is discovered being kissed by her own husband." "Wilhelmina," Lady Peggy said, stretching out her hand for one of Deyes' cigarettes, "may live to astonish us yet, but of one thing I am convinced. She will never even realize the other sex except through her own husband. I am afraid she will grow narrow--I should hate to write as her epitaph that she was an affectionate wife and devoted mother--but I am perfectly certain that that is what it will come to." "In that case," Deyes remarked gloomily, "I may as well go away." "No! I shouldn't do that," Lady Peggy said. "I should try to alter my point of view." "Direct me, please," he begged. "I should try," she continued, "to put a bridle upon my desires and take up the reins. You could lead them in a more suitable direction." "For instance?" "There is myself," she declared. He laughed quietly. "You!" he repeated. "Why, you are the most incorrigible flirt in Christendom. You would no more tie yourself up with one man than enter a nunnery." She sighed. "I have always been misunderstood," she declared, looking at him pathetically out of her delightful eyes. "What you call my flirtations have been simply my attempts, more or less clumsy, to gain a husband. I have been most unlucky. No one ever proposes to me!" He laughed derisively. "Your victims have been too loquacious," he replied. "How about Gayton, who went to Africa because you offered to be his friend, and Horris--he came to my rooms to tell me all about it the day you refused him, and Sammy Palliser--you treated him shockingly!"