And then he went on to Suffolk’s story with the most natural sequence;--a man so full of talent, so laborious, so devoted to art, with such a pretty little wife! ‘Ah, there we have you, Mr. Renton!’ said jolly Mrs. Rich; ‘but it is naughty to talk so of a married lady. You ought to have eyes only for the pretty girls.’ ‘A pretty young woman is a pretty young woman, whether she’s married or single,’ said her husband; ‘but I don’t like a man who goes on painting pictures that don’t sell. What is the good of it? No man in business would think of such a thing. It’s a sinful waste of capital as well as a waste of time. He ought to have changed his style. I’ll tell him so. You do a many foolish things, Mr. Renton, you artists, for want of a plain common-sense man of business to give you a little advice.’ ‘That is very possible,’ said Laurie, with candour; ‘but even in business a man may go on with a speculation for a long time, though it is not immediately successful, if he is sure it will succeed in the end;--so long as he can afford to wait.’ ‘Ah, yes, that is the whole question,’ said Mr. Rich,--‘as long as he can afford to wait; but a man should think of his wife and children. If I had a little family dependent on me, and had to paint for a living, I’d make them comfortable, Mr. Renton, if I had to change my style every other day.’ ‘But that is not so easy as you think,’ said Laurie; ‘and the wife and children do not complain. Mrs. Suffolk is as proud of those boys in the Forum as she is of her own babies.’ ‘Are there boys in the picture?’ said Mrs. Rich. ‘Then I shall like it for one. And she must be a nice little woman; but you young men, you should not go paying attention to a married lady. It is not because it is wrong,--for I never was so strait-laced as some, and never objected to a bit of fun,--but it keeps you from marrying and settling, which is dreadful. You are all so selfish, you gentlemen. As long as you have a woman to go and tell your little tales to, and get her sympathy and so forth, and no danger of going any further, you are quite satisfied;--and the girls are left, and nobody pays any attention to them. That is what I don’t approve of. We matrons have had our day, Mr. Renton, and we should be content with it. When I see married women dancing and going on, and young girls sitting without partners, I could beat them, though, perhaps, it is vulgar of me to say so. I like a young man when he falls in love honestly, as people did in my days, with a nice young girl.’