in the same apartment, notwithstanding the
eleven rooms and so on, a monotony of existence pervades even the
grandeur of velvet-panelled walls. There are the inevitable three
meals a day to be gone through with--five meals if tea and a supper
party are counted. There are the same ever-rising questions as to the
cook's honesty and the chauffeur's graft in the matter of buying, new
tires. There are just so many persons who have to be wined and dined
and who revenge themselves by doing likewise to their former host; the
everlasting exchanging of courtesies and pleasantries--all the dull,
decent habits of ultra living.

Steve found his small store of possessions huddled into a corner, his
pet slippers and gown graciously bestowed upon a passing panhandler,
and he was obliged to don a very correct gray "shroud," as he named it
in thankless terms, and to put his cigar and cigar ashes into
something having the earmarks of an Etruscan coal scuttle, though
Beatrice said it was a priceless antique Gay had bought for a song!
There were many times when Steve would have liked to roam about his
house in plebeian shirt sleeves, eat a plain steak and French-fried
potatoes with a hunk of homemade pie as a finish, and spend the
evening in that harmless, disorderly fashion known to men of doing
nothing but stroll about smoking, playing semi-popular records,
reading the papers, and very likely having another hunk of pie at
bedtime.

Besides all this there were the topics of the day to discuss. During
his courtship love was an all-absorbing topic. There were many
questions that Beatrice asked that required intricate and tiring
answers. During the first six weeks of living at the apartment Steve
realized a telling difference between men and women is that a woman
demands a specific case--you must rush special incidents to back up
any theory you may advance--whereas men, for the most part, are
content with abstract reasoning and supply their own incidents if they
feel inclined. Also that a finely bred fragile type of woman such as
Beatrice inspires both fear and a maudlin sort of sympathy, and that
man is prevented from crossing such a one to any great extent since
men are as easily conquered by maudlin sympathy as by fear.

When a yellow-haired child with dove-coloured eyes manages to squeeze
out a tear and at the same moment depart in wrath to her room and
lock the doors, refusing to answer--the trouble being why in
heaven's name must a