“And the worst of it is that he is adored,” said Mrs. Wolfstein. “Look at my passion for Henry.” They began to talk about their husbands. Lady Holme did not join in. She and Pimpernel Schley were very silent members of the party. Even Miss Burns, who was--so she said--a spinster by conviction not by necessity, plunged into the husband question, and gave some very daring illustrations of the marriage customs of certain heathen tribes. Pimpernel Schley hardly spoke at all. When someone, turning to her, asked her what she thought about the subject under discussion, she lifted her pale eyes and said, with the choir-boy drawl: “I’ve got no husband and never had one, so I guess I’m no kind of a judge.” “I guess she’s a judge of other women’s husbands, though,” said Mrs. Wolfstein to Lady Cardington. “That child is going to devastate London.” Now and then Lady Holme glanced towards Sir Donald and his son. They seemed as untalkative as she was. Sir Donald kept on looking towards Mrs. Wolfstein’s table. So did Leo. But whereas Leo Ulford’s eyes were fixed on Pimpernel Schley, Sir Donald’s met the eyes of Lady Holme. She felt annoyed; not because Sir Donald was looking at her, but because his son was not. How these women talked about their husbands! Lady Cardington, who was a widow, spoke of husbands as if they were a race which was gradually dying out. She thought the modern woman was beginning to get a little tired of the institution of matrimony, and to care much less for men than was formerly the case. Being contradicted by Mrs. Trent, she gave her reasons for this belief. One was that whereas American matinee girls used to go mad over the “leading men” of the stage they now went mad over the leading women. She also instanced the many beautiful London women, universally admired, who were over thirty and still remained spinsters. Mrs. Trent declared that they were abnormal, and that, till the end of time, women would always wish to be wives. Mrs. Wolfstein agreed with her on various grounds. One was that it was the instinct of woman to buy and to rule, and that if she were rich she could now acquire a husband as, in former days, people acquired slaves--by purchase. This remark led to the old question of American heiresses and the English nobility, and to a prolonged discussion as to whether or not most women ruled their husbands.