“Ah,” said Shelmerdene, “you ask me what I don’t know. Ten years is a very long time, as I remarked before. I am in the fourth decade of my life, Foster, and I must have understanding. I know too much about love to want only love. Love, Foster, is just a trick of the heart to fool the mind--without understanding, it is no use to me. It is funny how well Englishmen can understand niggers and how idiotic they can be about women. They get so sleepy, Foster.... If he came back now, would I let him? I don’t know, I can’t tell. If he came back sweetly--oh, sweetly, Foster! then yes, yes, yes! But if he came back bitterly.... I will wear the new silver tissue from Lanvin, Foster. And the silver shoes--there, in that box from Hellstern. I am thirty-four years old, and I would like to look----” “Here it is, madam. It _is_ a lovely dress!” “Yes, it will do very well. I shall look like a greyhound to-night, though of course there will be no man there to notice it. I have often looked like a greyhound, but there is only one man who has ever remarked it. A very inadequate crowd of men about, Foster. If I could only write a book I would write one on men, and I would call it _Rats, Rape and Rheumatism_. Oh, what fun I would have with that book, Foster! Imagine the face of a publisher when I took him a book with that title! He would say: ‘Eh--but--eh--we cannot publish a book like this, you know!’ And I would say: ‘And why not, pray? Look at Mrs. Asquith.’ And after we had looked at Mrs. Asquith he would publish my book at once, and then I would go into Hatchard’s in Piccadilly and ask Mr. Humphreys: ‘And how is my book going, Mr. Humphreys?’ ‘I beg your pardon?’ he would say. ‘Yes, Mr. Humphreys, my book, _Rats, Rape and Rheumatism_.’ And I would say that very loud, you see, Foster, and every one in the shop would look at me, whispering among themselves: ‘There is that terrible woman who wrote that terrible book!’ And with one accord, in fact one might almost say in a body, they would drop the trash they had thought of buying and buy my book, for it is not every day, Foster, that a woman writes a book called _Rats, Rape and Rheumatism_.” “I am sure you could write a very good book, madam. Your life would make such an interesting novel!” “Oh, every woman thinks that! It is extraordinary how conceited women are about their past miseries. I can bear women less and less. And, oh, I wish I was not going out to dinner to-night! I would like to dine on an egg and then read a good book. What are you reading, Foster?” “Well, madam.... It’s by Ethel M. Dell.” “Is it any good? I have never read any of Miss Dell’s books. But then I have never read any of Henry James’s, either, not right through.” “Well, madam.... It’s a love-story, about a girl and an earl, you know.”