[157] "Sharp points of view," suggested the widow. "Or opinions on the equality of the sexes," added the bachelor. "Or on politics." "Or the higher life." "Or on anything but the latest way to curl her hair and make over a hat," finished the widow. "Isn't it funny," she added thoughtfully twisting a French knot into the centre of the sickly green rose, "how many men idealize a fool?" The bachelor started. "I—-I beg your pardon," he stammered. "All a woman has got to know in order to wear a halo," went on the widow, calmly fastening the French[158] knot with a jerk of her needle, "is how to keep it on straight. All a man demands of her is the negative virtues and the knowledge of how not to do things; how not to think, how not to argue, how not to nag, how not to theorize, how not to be athletic, how not to spend money, how not to take care of herself, how not——" [158] "You've got your ideas into a French knot!" broke in the bachelor desperately. "You're all tangled up in the thread of your argument. It isn't how not to do things but how to do them that is important to a woman. It isn't what she does but how she does it that matters. She may commit a highway murder or low down burglary; and if she does it in a ruffled skirt and a picture hat any man will forgive her. Her[159] morals may be as crooked and dark as a lane at midnight; but if her manners are smooth and gentle and guileless and tender she can deceive the cleverest man alive into believing her a nun. It isn't what she says but how she says it that counts. There are some women who could read your death warrant or repeat the multiplication table in such a confiding voice and with such a tender glance that you would want to take them in your arms and thank them for it. It isn't what a woman wears but how she wears it; it's not her beauty nor her talents nor her frocks that make her fascinating, but her ways, the little earmarks of femininity that God put on every creature born to wear petticoats; and if she's got those she
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