main in love for the first two
or three years, and for the love then to turn gradually into a warm
friendship, or even a deep affection, which may go on growing
deeper--it's only the romance and the glamour and sparkle that seems to
go--the excitement. And that's such a pity. I can't help thinking in
many cases it really needn't be. More often than not, I believe, it's
the woman's mistake. Just at first, she's liable to take too much
advantage of the new sort of power she feels."

"Do you mean, Bertha, that the woman generally doesn't take enough
trouble with the house to make it pleasant for him at home--and all
that?"

"I _didn't_ mean that, though it might be so. But sometimes it's just
the other way. More often than not she takes a great deal too much
trouble about the home, and bothers him about it. There's far too much
domesticity. It's like playing at houses at first, but soon it grows
tedious. At any rate the whole thing is worth studying very deeply. I
can tell you I haven't given it up yet."

"You? Oh, Bertha, I can't think what fault you have to find. You, as you
say, certainly are exacting."

"I blame myself, solely. I feel that, somehow or other, I've allowed
things to get too prosaic. Percy takes everything for granted:
everything goes on wheels. Of course, if I were satisfied to settle down
at twenty-eight with complete contentment at the prospect of a humdrum
existence, it would be all right; but I'm not. In another few years
Percy will be getting on very well as a barrister, taking himself
seriously, and regarding me just as part of the furniture at home. You
know he always calls me a canary; that shows his point of view. Well,
then, he might get a little interested in a wilder kind of bird, and I
shouldn't like it!"

"What would your idea be, then? Would you flirt to make him jealous?"

"No, I certainly shouldn't. That's frightfully obvious and common. If I
ever did flirt, it wouldn't be for such a silly reason as that. It would
be for my own amusement and for nothing else, but I don't think I ever
shall. I think it's a fatal mistake for a woman to lower herself in any
way in the other person's eyes. Her lasting hold and best one, is that
he must think her perfection; it's the safest link with a really nice
man. Anyone can be worse than you are, but it's not easy when you take
the line that none can be _better_! because no one else is going to try!
But if, after all, he still gets tired of her,