Women nearly always argue from personal experience, and consequently Lady Cardington--whose husband had treated her badly--differed on this point from Mrs. Wolfstein, who always did precisely what she pleased, regardless of Mr. Wolfstein’s wishes. Mrs. Trent affirmed that for her part she thought women should treat their husbands as they treated their servants, and dismiss them if they didn’t behave themselves, without giving them a character. She had done so twice, and would do it a third time if the occasion arose. Sally Perceval attacked her for this, pleading slangily that men would be men, and that their failings ought to be winked at; and Miss Burns, as usual, brought the marital proceedings of African savages upon the carpet. Lady Manby turned the whole thing into a joke by a farcical description of the Private Enquiry proceedings of a jealous woman of her acquaintance, who had donned a canary-coloured wig as a disguise, and dogged her husband’s footsteps in the streets of London, only to find that he went out at odd times to visit a grandmother from whom he had expectations, and who happened to live in St. John’s Wood. The foreign waiters, who moved round the table handing the dishes, occasionally exchanged furtive glances which seemed indicative of suppressed amusement, and the men who were lunching near, many of whom were now smoking cigarettes, became more and more intent upon Mrs. Wolfstein and her guests. As they were getting up to go into the Palm Court for coffee and liqueurs, Lady Cardington again referred to the article on the proposed school for happiness, which had apparently made a deep impression upon her. “I wonder if happiness can be taught,” she said. “If it can--” “It can’t,” said Mrs. Trent, with more than her usual sledge-hammer bluntness. “We aren’t meant to be happy here.” “Who doesn’t mean us to be happy?” asked poor Lady Cardington in a deplorable voice. “First--our husbands.” “It’s cowardly not to be happy,” cried Miss Burns, pushing her hat over her left eye as a tribute to the close of lunch. “In a savage state you’ll always find--” The remainder of her remark was lost in the _frou-frou_ of skirts as the eight women began slowly to thread their way between the tables to the door. Lady Holme found herself immediately behind Miss Schley, who moved with impressive deliberation and the extreme composure of a well-brought-up child thoroughly accustomed to being shown off to visitors. Her straw-coloured hair was done low in the nape of her snowy neck, and, as she took her little steps, her white skirt trailed over the carpet behind her with a sort of virginal slyness. As she passed Leo Ulford it brushed gently against him, and he drummed the large fingers of his left hand with sudden violence on the tablecloth, at the same time pursing his chubby lips and then opening his mouth as if he were going to say something.