"Not to you, sir, perhaps," he answered, with a smile. "It is not
with you that she will be indignant."
"That will be all right, my boy," I told him; "I take all
responsibility."
"And I shall get all the blame," he laughed.
But, as I pointed out to him, it really didn't matter whom Robina
blamed. We talked about women generally on our way back. I told
him--impressing upon him there was no need for it to go farther--that
I personally had come to the conclusion that the best way to deal
with women was to treat them all as children. He agreed it might be
a good method, but wanted to know what you did when they treated you
as a child.
I know a most delightful couple: they have been married nearly
twenty years, and both will assure you that an angry word has never
passed between them. He calls her his "Little One," although she
must be quite six inches taller than himself, and is never tired of
patting her hand or pinching her ear. They asked her once in the
drawing-room--so the Little Mother tells me--her recipe for domestic
bliss. She said the mistake most women made was taking men too
seriously.
"They are just overgrown children, that's all they are, poor dears,"
she laughed.
There are two kinds of love: there is the love that kneels and looks
upward, and the love that looks down and pats. For durability I am
prepared to back the latter.
The architect had died out of young Bute; he was again a shy young
man during our walk back to the cottage.
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