"I don't blame you for regretting that you didn't marry Miss Burroughs."

"But I don't regret it," replied he. "On the contrary, I'm glad."

She glanced hopefully at him. But the hopeful expression faded as he
went on:

"Whether or not I made a mistake in marrying you, I certainly had an
escape from disaster when she decided she preferred a foreigner and a
title. There's a good sensible reason why so many girls of her
class--more and more all the time--marry abroad. They are not fit to be
the wives of hard-working American husbands. In fact I've about reached
the conclusion that of the girls growing up nowdays very few in any
class are fit to be American wives. They're not big enough. They're too
coarse and crude in their tastes. They're only fit for the shallow,
showy sort of thing--and the European aristocracy is their hope--and
their place."

Her small face had a fascinating expression of a
child trying to understand things far beyond its depth. He was
interested in his own thoughts, however, and went on--for, if he had
been in the habit of stopping when his hearers failed to understand, or
when they misunderstood, either he would have been silent most of the
time in company or his conversation would have been as petty and narrow
and devoid of originality or imagination as is the mentality of most
human beings--as is the talk and reading that impress them as
interesting--and profound!

"The American man of the more ambitious sort," he went on, "either has
to live practically if not physically apart from his wife or else has to
educate some not too difficult woman to be his wife."

She understood that. "You are really going to educate me?" she said,
with an arch smile. Now that Norman had her attention, now that she was
centering upon him instead of upon herself, she was interested in him,
and in what he said, whether she understood it or not, whether it
pleased her vanity or wounded it. The intellects of women work to an
unsuspected extent only through the sex charm. Their appreciations of
books, of art, of men are dependant, often in the most curious indirect
ways, upon the fact that the author, the artist, the politician or what
not is betrousered. Thus, Dorothy was patient, respectful, attentive,
was not offended by Norman's didactic way of giving her the lessons in
life. Her smile was happy as well as coquettish, as she asked him to
educate her.

He returned her smile. "That depends," answered he.

"Yo