JEM: Far from it. In fact, to sum up the whole matter, we have no common sympathies. Kitty has not even any ambition, for instance, as to my future. You know I wish to stand for Portborough one day? SIR W.: _You!!_ JEM: Why not? SIR W.: Oh, no! Of course! Why not, as you say? JEM: Yet if I begin to discuss it all with her, _she_ begins to yawn; and her yawning drives me nearly mad, when I am talking on a matter of vital interest. SIR W.: Dear! Dear! I begin to find all this more serious than I thought. For it does seem to me as if you differed on most subjects. JEM (_moodily_): So we do. SIR W.: Ah! I am afraid it may be pretty serious! And after listening to all your story I can't help feeling, my dear fellow, that there is not the chance of things bettering themselves, as I had hoped in the first instance. JEM: You feel that? SIR W.: I do! I do! This divergence of taste and sympathies is no laughing matter. It rather alarms me when I think that the abyss between you and your wife as time goes on may only widen. (_He indicates an imaginary abyss, which JEM stares at dubiously._) Yes! widen--and widen! JEM (_after a moment's pause of half surprise, half pain_): What you say is not consoling. SIR W.: At first I thought differently; but now I hesitate to mislead you, and I admit my heart sinks when I think of your future, after hearing all you have to say. Indeed, I hope I may be mistaken. I have, as you know, but little experience in these matters. Your aunt and I have lived in undisturbed harmony these fifteen years. Never has an angry word been heard within our walls. JEM: Whilst Kitty and I squabbled as soon as we had left the rice and slippers behind us! And since then scarcely an hour has passed without some sort of difference. I declare, when I think over it, that it would be best for us to plunge into the ice at once. A separation is the only hope for us. But, hush! I think I hear Aunt Flo's and Kitty's footsteps! (_Lowers his voice, speaking rapidly_) For Heaven's sake, don't breathe a word of what I have said! Fool that I've been! Worse than a fool--disloyal! Not a word to my aunt! SIR W.: Oh! I promise you! (_Mysteriously into Jem's ear_) Women are so indiscreet. Now, I wouldn't tell your aunt for the wide world! (_Enter LADY FLO and KITTY, who have overheard the last words._) LADY FLO (_icily_): I beg pardon! We interrupt! JEM: Not at all! We were merely discussing the relations of man and wife! Uncle Will has been telling me that a wife--you, under the circumstances--has everything in her own hands. [Illustration: SIR W.: "WOMEN ARE SO INDISCREET."] LADY FLO (_flattered_): Indeed! KITTY: Indeed! I must say that no one could appreciate Aunt Flo's virtues more than I, although at the same time I am certain she would very soon have lost her sweet temper if her husband had been aggravating, ignorant, domineering! JEM: Why not call me a savage at once? KITTY: A savage! Yes! A savage!