n a pavement wet with newly-fallen rain, to
flare on horses, on the visages of cabmen, and stray, queer objects that
do not bear the light.

"Shall we walk?" asked Halidome.

"Has it ever struck you," answered Shelton, "that in a play nowadays
there's always a 'Chorus of Scandalmongers' which seems to have acquired
the attitude of God?"

Halidome cleared his throat, and there was something portentous in the
sound.

"You're so d---d fastidious," was his answer.

"I've a prejudice for keeping the two things separate," went on Shelton.
"That ending makes me sick."

"Why?" replied Halidome. "What other end is possible? You don't want a
play to leave you with a bad taste in your mouth."

"But this does."

Halidome increased his stride, already much too long; for in his walk, as
in all other phases of his life, he found it necessary to be in front.

"How do you mean?" he asked urbanely; "it's better than the woman making
a fool of herself."

"I'm thinking of the man."

"What man?"

"The husband."

"What 's the matter with him? He was a bit of a bounder, certainly."

"I can't understand any man wanting to live with a woman who doesn't want
him."

Some note of battle in Shelton's voice, rather than the sentiment itself,
caused his friend to reply with dignity:

"There's a lot of nonsense talked about that sort of thing. Women don't
really care; it's only what's put into their heads."

"That's much the same as saying to a starving man: 'You don't really want
anything; it's only what's put into your head!' You are begging the
question, my friend."

But nothing was more calculated to annoy Halidome than to tell him he was
"begging the question," for he prided himself on being strong in logic.

"That be d---d," he said.

"Not at all, old chap. Here is a case where a woman wants her freedom,
and you merely answer that she dogs n't want it."

"Women like that are impossible; better leave them out of court."

Shelton pondered this and smiled; he had recollected an acquaintance of
his own, who, when his wife had left him, invented the theory that she
was mad, and this struck him now as funny. But then he thought: "Poor
devil! he was bound to call her mad! If he didn't, it would be
confessing himself distasteful; however true, you can't expect a man to
consider himself that." But a glance at his friend's eye warned him that
he, too, might think his wife mad in such a case.

"Surely," he said, "eve