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I said that I was sorry. I went on to explain that I did not mean I was sorry to hear that in all probability he was alive and well. What I meant was I was sorry I had introduced a painful subject.

“What’s a painful subject?”

“Why, your husband,” I replied.

“But why should you call him a painful subject?”

I had an idea she was getting angry with me. She did not say so. I gathered it. But I had to explain myself somehow.

“Well,” I answered, “I take it, you didn’t get on well together, and I am sure it must have been his fault.”

“Now look here,” she said, “don’t you breathe a word against my husband or we shall quarrel. A nicer, dearer fellow never lived.”

“Then what did you divorce him for?” I asked. It was impertinent, it was unjustifiable. My excuse is that the mystery surrounding the American husband had been worrying me for months. Here had I stumbled upon the opportunity of solving it. Instinctively I clung to my advantage.

“There hasn’t been any divorce,” she said. “There isn’t going to be any divorce. You’ll make me cross in another minute.”

But I was becoming reckless. “He is not dead. You are not divorced from him. Where is he?” I demanded with some heat.

“Where is he?” she replied, astonished. Where should he be? At home, of course.” I looked around the luxuriously-furnished room with its air of cosy comfort, of substantial restfulness.

“What home?” I asked.

“What home! Why, our home, in Detroit.”

“What is he doing there?” I had become so much in earnest that my voice had assumed unconsciously an authoritative tone. Presumably, it hypnotised her, for she answered my questions as though she had been in the witness-box.

“How do I know? How can I possibly tell you what he is doing? What do people usually do at home?”

“Answer the questions, madam, don’t ask them. What are you doing here? Quite truthfully, if you please.” My eyes were fixed upon her.

“Enjoying myself. He likes me to enjoy myself. Besides, I am educating the children.”

“You mean they are here at boarding-school while you are gadding about. What is wrong with American education? When did you see your husband last?”

“Last? Let me see. No, last Christmas I was in Berlin. It must have been the Christmas before, I think.”

“If he is the dear kind fellow you say he is, how is it you haven’t seen him for two years?”

“Because, as I tell you, he is at home, in Detroit. How can I see him when I am here in Dresden and he is in Detroit? You do ask foolish questions. He means to try and come over in the summer, if he can spare the time, and then, of course –

“Answer my questions, please. I’ve spoken to you once about it. Do you think you are performing your duty as a wife, enjoying yourself in Dresden and Berlin while your husband is working hard in Detroit?”

“He was quite willing for me to come. The American husband is a good fellow who likes his wife to enjoy herself.”

“I am not asking for your views on the American husband. I am asking your views on the American wife–on yourself. The American husband appears to be a sort of stained-glass saint, and you American wives are imposing upon him. It is doing you no good, and it won’t go on for ever. There will come a day when the American husband will wake up to the fact he is making a fool of himself, and by over- indulgence, over-devotion, turning the American woman into a heartless, selfish creature. What sort of a home do you think it is in Detroit, with you and the children over here? Tell me, is the American husband made entirely of driven snow, with blood distilled from moonbeams, or is he composed of the ordinary ingredients? Because, if the latter, you take my advice and get back home. I take it that in America, proper, there are millions of real homes where the woman does her duty and plays the game. But also it is quite clear there are thousands of homes in America, mere echoing rooms, where the man walks by himself, his wife and children scattered over Europe. It isn’t going to work, it isn’t right that it should work.”

“You take the advice of a sincere friend. Pack up–you and the children–and get home.”

I left. It was growing late. I felt it was time to leave. Whether she took my counsel I cannot say. I only know that there still remain in Europe a goodly number of American wives to whom it is applicable.