came back, I mean--in the evening."

"Some little time must have intervened."

"Yes, two hours, I should judge."

Mrs. Manhattan nodded. "Well," she said, with an air of profound
sapience, "no man ever talks to a woman for two hours unless he keeps
saying the same thing all the time."

"Laura, that is not like you. You know perfectly well that friendship
can exist between a man and a woman without there being any thought of
love-making."

"Oh, I know what you are going to say. But there is the difference
between love and friendship. To those who have witnessed a bull-fight,
the circus I hear is commonplace."

"You mean to imply that my husband was enjoying a bull-fight?"

"I don't mean anything of the sort. But what a way you have of reducing
generalities to particulars! No, I don't mean that at all. I am speaking
in the air. What I meant to imply was that love has consolations which
friendship does not possess."

"Laura, you don't understand. It is not a question of that. This woman's
husband has got into trouble and John was trying to get him out."

Mrs. Manhattan eyed her again in the same gingerly fashion as before.
"He said that, did he?"

Eden nodded.

"I hope you pretended to believe him."

"Pretended! Why, I did believe him. I believed him at once."

"Yes, that's a good way." Mrs. Manhattan tormented the point of her nose
reflectively. "I used to too," she added. "Now I simply don't see. That
I find even better. It makes everything go so smoothly. No arguments, no
recriminations, perfect peace. Nicholas, as you know, is the most
delightful man in the world. I have the highest respect for him. If he
took it into his head to leave the planet and me behind, I should feel
it my duty as a Christian woman to see that the trappings of my woe were
becoming to his memory. But--but, well, I should feel that I had been
vaccinated. I should feel that a minor evil had protected me from a
greater one. In other words, I would not marry again. It is my opinion,
an opinion I believe which is shared by a good many other people, that
a woman who marries a second time does not deserve to have lost her
first husband. Now, as I say of Nicholas, I have the greatest respect
for him. He is charming. I haven't the vaguest idea how he would get
along without me. I do everything for him, but I am careful not to exact
the impossible. We get along splendidly together. He makes the most
elaborate efforts to throw dust in my ey