"Oh, my dear Mrs. Dennison!" Kate protested. "You and your kind are the
true social workers. If only women--all women--understood how to make
true homes, there wouldn't be any need for people like us. We're only
well-intentioned fools who go around putting plasters over the sores. We
don't even reach down as far as the disease--though I suppose we think
we do when we get a lot of statistics together. But the men and women
who go about their business, doing their work well all of the time, are
the preventers of social trouble. Isn't that so, Dr. von Shierbrand?"

That amiable German readjusted his glasses upon his handsome nose and
began to talk about the Second Part of "Faust." The provocation, though
slight, had seemed to him sufficient.

"My husband has already eaten and gone!" observed Honora with some
chagrin. "Can't you use your influence, Mrs. Dennison, to make him spend
a proper amount of time at the table?"

"Oh, he doesn't need to eat except once in a great while. He has the
ways of genius, Mrs. Fulham. Geniuses like to eat at odd times, and my
own feeling is that they should be allowed to do as they please. It is
very bad for geniuses to make them follow a set plan," said Mrs.
Dennison earnestly.

"That woman," observed Dr. von Shierbrand under his breath to Kate, "has
the true feminine wisdom. She should have been the wife of a great man.
It was such qualities which Goethe meant to indicate in his Marguerite."

Honora, who had overheard, lifted her pensive gray eyes and interchanged
a long look with Dr. von Shierbrand. Each seemed to be upon the verge of
some remark.