"Marie wants to ask for a perambulator."

"'Him'?"

"Yes, him. Who's always 'him' to the household--the husband, the
tyrant, the terror. Ugh!"

"Oh, come, Miss Winter. Osborn Kerr--I've known him for years; there's
nothing of the tyrant and the terror about him. Why this embroidery of
the sad tale?"

"Well, why was Marie afraid to ask him, then?"

"I don't know anything about it. I'm at a disadvantage with you, it
seems."

"I'm quite willing to tell you; that's what I'm dining with you for,
isn't it?"

"Is it?" said Rokeby, with a very charming smile which but few women
knew.

She hurried on: "Yes, it is. You see, I didn't want you to come in and
spoil it all, prevent Marie from asking her husband for the
perambulator."

"You were awf'ly thoughtful, and I'm sure I didn't want to chip in at
the wrong moment; but, I say, would it have mattered so much? Because
I'd love to know why; you're interesting me, you know. She could have
asked him another time, couldn't she?"

"You see, she was all ready to-night."

"'All ready'?"

"She put on the frock she was married in; and there was the whipped
cream he's so fond of, with a cherry pie; and it all seemed so
propitious that I thought it would be a pity if you spoilt it."

"You're right. I wouldn't have cut in for the world. But, I say," he
cried gleefully, "what guile! What plotfulness! There's no getting
even with a woman, is there? Little Mrs. Osborn and you lay your heads
together, and she puts on her wedding frock--"

Julia eyed him with a steely disdain.

"Kindly tell me why a woman should trouble herself to make plans to
coax her husband?"

"Ask me another. How do I know? She _did_ it, didn't she?"

"Yes, because he was one of those beastly 'hims,' to be toadied and
cajoled and fussed into a good humour before his wife dare ask for a
carriage for the baby that belongs to both of them."

"Oh, I see! I see! I say, I'm stupid, aren't I?"

"I'll forgive you your stupidity if you promise me never to marry and
make any woman miserable."

Rokeby became slightly nettled.

"Why shouldn't I marry and make some woman happy?" he demanded.

"Ask _me_ another; you men don't seem to, do you?"

"You're not very sympathetic to--"

"Nor you. Look here! Bread and butter, and candles and bootblacking,
and laundering, and expenses for a baby when you've got one, are all
everyday things, aren't they? If a woman's got to fuss and plan and
cry and worry and figh