It is always a mystery to the City man how his wife puts in the seven hours a day of loneliness while the E.C. has claimed him for its own.  She cannot explain it to him, for she can hardly explain it to herself.  It is frittered away in a thousand little tasks, each trivial in itself, and yet making in their sum the difference between a well-ordered and a neglected household.  Under the illustrious guidance of the omniscient Mrs. Beeton there is the usual routine to be gone through.  The cook has to be seen, the larder examined, the remains cunningly transformed into new and attractive shapes, the dinner to be ordered (anything will do for lunch), and the new supplies to be got in.  The husband accepts the excellent little dinner, the fried sole, the ris de veau en caisse, the lemon pudding, as if they had grown automatically out of the table-cloth.  He knows nothing of the care, the judgment, the prevision which ring the changes with every season, which never relax and never mistake.  He enjoys the fruits, but he ignores the work which raised them.  And yet the work goes cheerfully and uncomplainingly on.

Then when every preparation has been made for the dinner—­that solemn climax of the British day, there is plenty for Maude to do.  There is the white chiffon to be taken out of the neck of that dress, and the pink to be put in.  Amateur dressmaking is always going on at The Lindens, and Frank has become more careful in his caresses since he found one evening that his wife had a row of pins between her lips—­ which is not a pleasant discovery to make with your own.  Then there are drawers to be tidied, and silver to be cleaned, and the leaves of the gutta-percha plant to be washed, and the feather which was damped yesterday to be re-curled before the fire.  That leaves just time before lunch to begin the new novel by glancing at the last two pages to see what did happen, and then the three minutes lunch of a lonely woman.  So much for business, now for the more trying social duties.  The pink dressing-gown is shed and a trim little walking dress—­ French grey cloth with white lisse in front and a grey zouave jacket--takes its place.  Visiting strangers is not nearly so hard when you are pleased with your dress, and even entertaining becomes more easy when your costumiere lives in Regent Street.  On Tuesdays Maude is at home.  Every other day she hunts through her plate of cards, and is overwhelmed by the sense of her rudeness towards her neighbours.  But her task is never finished, though day after day she comes back jaded with her exertions.  Strangers still call upon her—­’hope it is not too late to do the right thing, and to welcome,’ etc., etc.—­and they have to be re-visited.  While she is visiting them, other cards appear upon her hall table, and so the foolish and tiresome convention continues to exhaust the time and the energies of its victim.