ntly he jerked his head, as if he felt a spasm of
pain, and leaned forward to get a stick from the fire to light his pipe.

"Now, there's the girl who marries a man to reform him, and when she has
reformed him never lets him hear the last of it. Sometimes, as a woman,
she drives him back again. But this was not one of that sort of girls.
I once held a theory that sometimes a girl who has married a man and
reformed him misses in the reformed man the something which attracted
her in the careless scamp, the something which made her love him--and so
she ceases to love him, and their married life is a far more miserable
one than it would have been had he continued drinking. I hold no theory
of that kind now. Such theories ruin many married lives."

Peter jerked his head again as if impatient with a thought, and reached
for a fire-stick.

"But that's got nothing to do with the story. When Gentleman Once
reformed his natural selfishness came back. He saw that he had made a
mistake. It's a terrible thing for a young man, a few months, perhaps a
few weeks after his marriage, to ask himself the question, `Have I made
a mistake?' But Gentleman Once wasn't to be pitied. He discovered that
he had married beneath him in intellect and education. Home training
again. He couldn't have discovered that he had married beneath him as
far as birth was concerned, for his wife's father had been a younger son
of an older and greater family than his own--But Gentleman Once wouldn't
have been cad enough to bother about birth. I'll do him that much
justice. He discovered, or thought he did, that he and his wife could
never have one thought in common; that she couldn't possibly understand
him. I'll tell you later on whether he was mistaken or not. He was
gloomy most times, and she was a bright, sociable, busy little body.
When she tried to draw him out of himself he grew irritable. Besides,
having found that they couldn't have a thought in common he ceased to
bother to talk to her. There are many men who don't bother talking to
their wives; they don't think their wives feel it--because the wives
cease to complain after a while; they grow tired of trying to make the
man realize how they suffer. Gentleman Once tried his best--according
to his lights--and weakness. Then he went in for self-pity and all
the problems. He liked to brood, and his poor little wife's energy and
cheerfulness were wearying to him. He wanted to be left alone. They were
both