d's very bitter, though the kernel's sweet.

STRANGER. But very small.

TEMPTER. It may be small, but it's good! (Pause.) Tell me, why did your
madonna go her way? No answer; because he doesn't know! Now we'll have
to let the hotel again. Here's a board. I'll hang it out at once. 'To
Let.' One comes, another goes! C'est la vie, quoi? Rooms for Travellers!

STRANGER. Have you ever been married?

TEMPTER. Oh yes. Of course.

STRANGER. Then why did you part?

TEMPTER. Chiefly--perhaps it's a peculiarity of mine--chiefly
because--well, you know, a man marries to get a home, to get into a
home; and a woman to get out of one. She wanted to get out, and I wanted
to get in! I was so made that I couldn't take her into company, because
I felt as if she were soiled by men's glances. And in company, my
splendid, wonderful wife turned into a little grimacing monkey I
couldn't bear the sight of. So I stayed at home; and then, she stayed
away. And when I met her again, she'd changed into someone else. She,
my pure white notepaper, was scribbled all over; her clear and lovely
features changed in imitation of the satyr-like looks of strange men.
I could see miniature photographs of bull-fighters and guardsmen in her
eyes, and hear the strange accents of strange men in her voice. On our
grand piano, on which only the harmonies of the great masters used to be
heard, she now played the cabaret songs of strange men; and on our table
there lay nothing but the favourite reading of strange men. In a
word, my whole existence was on the way to becoming an intellectual
concubinage with strange men--and that was contrary to my nature, which
has always longed for women! And--I need hardly say this--the tastes of
these strange men were always the reverse of mine. She developed a real
genius for discovering things I detested! That's what she called 'saving
her personality.' Can you understand that?

STRANGER. I can; but I won't attempt to explain it.

TEMPTER. Yet this woman maintained she loved me, and that I didn't love
her. But I loved her so much I didn't want to speak to any other human
being; because I feared to be untrue to her if I found pleasure in
the company of others, even if they were men. I'd married for feminine
society; and in order to enjoy it I'd left my friends. I'd married in
order to find company, but what I got was complete solitude! And I was
supporting house and home, in order to provide strange men with feminine
comp