poor, dear old things, with the aspiration that all American women
should one day be sexless--though that is not the way they put it. .
. .

Well, we made the ship all right by one-thirty--an there was a
tempest blowing. That helped Florence a good deal. For we were
not ten minutes out from Sandy Hook before Florence went down
into her cabin and her heart took her. An agitated stewardess came
running up to me, and I went running down. I got my directions
how to behave to my wife. Most of them came from her, though it
was the ship doctor who discreetly suggested to me that I had
better refrain from manifestations of affection. I was ready
enough. I was, of course, full of remorse. It occurred to me that
her heart was the reason for the Hurlbirds' mysterious desire to
keep their youngest and dearest unmarried. Of course, they would
be too refined to put the motive into words. They were old stock
New Englanders. They would not want to have to suggest that a
husband must not kiss the back of his wife's neck. They would not
like to suggest that he might, for the matter of that. I wonder,
though, how Florence got the doctor to enter the conspiracy--the
several doctors.

Of course her heart squeaked a bit--she had the same configuration
of the lungs as her Uncle Hurlbird. And, in his company, she must
have heard a great deal of heart talk from specialists. Anyhow, she
and they tied me pretty well down--and Jimmy, of course, that
dreary boy--what in the world did she see in him? He was
lugubrious, silent, morose. He had no talent as a painter. He was
very sallow and dark, and he never shaved sufficiently. He met us
at Havre, and he proceeded to make himself useful for the next