“‘Mr. Battle can’t be comprehended from knowing other men!’” Here Mrs. Dodge somewhat bitterly mimicked the unfortunate Amelia’s eager voice. “‘Other men look at things in simply a masculine way!’ ‘I know how hard it must be for other women to understand a god like my husband just from knowing their own poor little imitation husbands!’” “Oh, no,” Mrs. Cromwell protested. “She didn’t quite say that.” “But isn’t it what she meant? Isn’t it exactly what she felt?” “Well—perhaps.” “It does make me tired!” Mrs. Dodge said, vigorously, and with the repetition she began to be more than vigorous. Under the spell of that rancour which increases in people when they mull over their injuries, she began to be indignant. “For one thing, outside of the shamelessness of it, some of the rest of us could just possibly find a few enthusiastic things to say of our husbands if we didn’t have some regard for not boring one another to death! I’ve got a fairly good husband of my own I’d like to mention once in a while, but——” “But, of course, you’ll never get the chance,” Mrs. Cromwell interrupted. “Not if Amelia’s in your neighbourhood when you attempt it.” “What I _can’t_ understand, though,” Mrs. Dodge went on, “is her never having the slightest suspicion what a nuisance it is. I should think the man himself would stop her.” But Mrs. Cromwell laughed and shook her head. “In the first place, of course, he agrees with her. He thinks Amelia’s just stating facts—facts that ought to be known. In the second, don’t you suppose he understands how useful her press-agenting is to him?” “But it isn’t. It makes us all sick of him.” “Oh, it may have that effect on you and me, Lydia, but I really wonder——” Mrs. Cromwell paused, frowning seriously, then continued: “Of course, he’d never take such a view of it. He instinctively knows it’s useful, but he’d never take the view of it that——” “The view of it that what?” Mrs. Dodge inquired, as her friend paused again.