Of all the ladies I have met, I have no hesitation in declaring that the American ones are the least affected. With them, I repeat it, I feel at ease as I do with no other women in the world.
With whom but an _Américaine_ would the following little scene have been possible?
I was in Boston. It was Friday, and knowing it to be the reception day of Mrs. X., an old friend of mine and my wife's, I thought I would call upon her early, before the crowd of visitors had begun to arrive. So I went to the house about half-past three in the afternoon. Mrs. X. received me in the drawing-room, and we were soon talking on the hundred and one topics that old friends have on their tongue tips. Presently the conversation fell on love and lovers. Mrs. X. drew her chair up a little nearer to the fire, put the toes of her little slippers on the fender stool, and with a charmingly confidential, but perfectly natural, manner, said:
"You are married and love your wife; I am married and love my husband; we are both artists, let's have our say out."
But all at once I noticed that about half an inch of the seam of her black silk bodice was unsewn. We men, when we see a lady with something awry in her toilette, how often do we long to say to her: "Excuse me, madam, but perhaps you don't know that you have a hairpin sticking out two inches just behind your ear," or "Pardon me, Miss, I'm a married man, there is something wrong there behind, just under your waist belt."
Now I felt for Mrs. X., who was just going to receive a crowd of callers with a little rent in one of her bodice seams, and tried to persuade myself to be brave and tell her of it. Yet I hesitated. People take things so differently. The conversation went on unflagging. At last I could not stand it any longer.
"Mrs. X.," said I, all in a breath, "you are married and love your husband; I am married and love my wife; we are both artists; there is a little bit of seam come unsewn, just there by your arm, run and get it sewn up!"
The peals of laughter that I heard going on upstairs, while the damage was being repaired, proved to me that there was no resentment to be feared, but, on the contrary, that I had earned the gratitude of Mrs. X.
