man detests——"

[10]

"How many kinds of women are there?" cried the widow suddenly.

"How many women are there?" retorted the bachelor. "The variety is only limited by the number of feminine individuals. But fundamentally they can be divided into two classes, just as automobiles can be divided into gasoline and electric. There is the woman a man wants to marry, the kind that is stamped from birth for wifehood, the even-tempered, steady-going, comfortable kind of girl that you would like to tie to for life and with whom you know you would be perfectly contented—and utterly stupid. Every man has in mind his ideal wife; and[11] nearly every man's ideal is of the calm, domestic, wholly good, wholly sweet sort, the sort that seems like a harbor away from the storm. But so often, just about as he has found this ideal, or before he has found her and before the sun of his summer day dream has risen the storm comes along——"

[11]

"The—what?"

"The tumultuous, impossible, adorable, unfathomable woman—the woman who may be good or bad, ugly or beautiful, but is always fascinating, alluring and irresistible. And she wrecks his little summer day dream and turns his snug harbor into a roaring whirlpool and carries him off in a tempest. Sometimes he marries her and sometimes he doesn't; but whether he does or does not, he[12] is always spoiled for the other kind afterward."

[12]

"And if he does marry her," added the widow, trailing her fingers thoughtfully in the water, "he is always sorry and wishing he had married the other kind."

"Well," the bachelor laid his paddle across his knee, "what's the difference? If he had married the other kind he would always have been wishing he hadn't. Now if a man could only be allowed two wives——"

"One for week days and one for—holidays?" inquired the widow sarcastically.

"Yes," acquiesced the bachelor, "one for each side of him, the tame side and the untamed side. One to serve as a harbor and make him a[13] home and fulfill his domestic longings and bring up his children and keep him sane and moral; and the other to amuse him and entertain him and inspire him and put the trimmings on life and the spice and flavor in the matrimonial dish."

[13]

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