and one can do it all over again from the beginning, with
variations.

LADY HUNSTANTON. How clever you are, my dear! You never mean a
single word you say.

LADY STUTFIELD. Thank you, thank you. It has been quite, quite
entrancing. I must try and remember it all. There are such a
number of details that are so very, very important.

LADY CAROLINE. But you have not told us yet what the reward of the
Ideal Man is to be.

MRS. ALLONBY. His reward? Oh, infinite expectation. That is
quite enough for him.

LADY STUTFIELD. But men are so terribly, terribly exacting, are
they not?

MRS. ALLONBY. That makes no matter. One should never surrender.

LADY STUTFIELD. Not even to the Ideal Man?

MRS. ALLONBY. Certainly not to him. Unless, of course, one wants
to grow tired of him.

LADY STUTFIELD. Oh! . . . yes. I see that. It is very, very
helpful. Do you think, Mrs. Allonby, I shall ever meet the Ideal
Man? Or are there more than one?