live down that scandal brought on us by Holbrook, (an indiscretion, I
think you called it,) we must keep our heads up." She paused, shook her
head in pity, and raised her fat, waxy hands. "I can't sleep of nights,
thinking of it. Lays a body's feelings out terribly. But he was so
wonderfully clever." Her face brightened up as she said this.
"Wonderfully clever," she interpolated. "It was his mental greatness I
always subsided to and admired. Clever people have their weaknesses as
well as people what are not as clever. I sometimes thought you had
yours, my dear--"

"My dear!" interrupted Chapman, with an air of surprise, "what do you
mean? Hav'nt I been a finished husband, and a loving father?"

"You are just as good, my dear, as husbands can be made." Mrs. Chapman
said this condescendingly, and with an air of admiration truly grand.
"But then, you know," she said, more mildly, "there was that handsome
widow you used to be so polite to, my dear. You know I detected her
waving a handkerchief once. Then you said it was one you left at the
house; and so I never thought of it again."

"I never let the past trouble me, my dear, never. A man of forethought,
of progressive ideas, looks always ahead, and by his acts proves that he
is up square with the spirit of the age. I have a new conception. Yes,
my dear, a new conception. Nothing figurative about it, my dear. I have
a new and grand conception, which I have been evolving in my mind for
some time, and now I am getting it into a scheme which I am sure will be
profitable."

"My dear husband," said Mrs. Chapman, in a strain of intense excitement,
"do let us know what it is."