She had no children, and had once remarked
in answer to the question whether she regretted this, "There must be
some pleasure in having sons old enough to flirt with you; but I don't
know of anything else I have lost that I have reason to regret."
Her husband, thorough man of the world as he was, and indeed perhaps
for that very reason, never outgrew a pleased surprise that he found
his wife so perennially entertaining. He was not unwilling that she
should exercise her fascinations on others when she chose, since he had
no feeling toward her sufficiently warm to engender anything like
jealousy; but he appreciated her to the full.
He rose from his seat and walked to the sideboard, where he selected a
cigar.
"I must say," he observed, between the puffs as he lighted it, "that
you are justice incarnate. You have always kept accounts squared with
me most beautifully."
Mrs. Staggchase laughed softly, toying with the tiny spoon of Swiss
carved silver with which she had stirred her coffee. Her husband had
expressed perfectly her theory of marital relations. She balanced
accounts in her mind with the most scrupulous exactness, and was an
admirable debtor if a somewhat unrelenting creditor. She had a definite
standard by which she measured her obligations to Mr. Staggchase, and
she never allowed herself to fall short in the measure she gave him.
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