n if she's his wife, a man's bound to behave like
a gentleman."

"Depends on whether she behaves like a lady."

"Does it? I don't see the connection."

Halidome paused in the act of turning the latch-key in his door; there
was a rather angry smile in his fine eyes.

"My dear chap," he said, "you're too sentimental altogether."

The word "sentimental" nettled Shelton. "A gentleman either is a
gentleman or he is n't; what has it to do with the way other people
behave?"

Halidome turned the key in the lock and opened the door into his hall,
where the firelight fell on the decanters and huge chairs drawn towards
the blaze.

"No, Bird," he said, resuming his urbanity, and gathering his coat-tails
in his hands; "it's all very well to talk, but wait until you're married.
A man must be master, and show it, too."

An idea occurred to Shelton.

"Look here, Hal," he said: "what should you do if your wife got tired of
you?"

The expression on Halidome's face was a mixture of amusement and
contempt.

"I don't mean anything personal, of course, but apply the situation to
yourself."

Halidome took out a toothpick, used it brusquely, and responded:

"I shouldn't stand any humbug--take her travelling; shake her mind up.
She'd soon come round."

"But suppose she really loathed you?"

Halidome cleared his throat; the idea was so obviously indecent. How
could anybody loathe him? With great composure, however, regarding
Shelton as if he were a forward but amusing child, he answered:

"There are a great many things to be taken into consideration."

"It appears to me," said Shelton, "to be a question of common pride. How
can you, ask anything of a woman who doesn't want to give it."

His friend's voice became judicial.

"A man ought not to suffer," he said, poring over his whisky, "because a
woman gets hysteria. You have to think of Society, your children, house,
money arrangements, a thousand things. It's all very well to talk. How
do you like this whisky?"

"The part of the good citizen, in fact," said Shelton,
"self-preservation!"

"Common-sense," returned his friend; "I believe in justice before
sentiment." He drank, and callously blew smoke at Shelton. "Besides,
there are many people with religious views about it."

"It's always seemed to me," said Shelton, "to be quaint that people
should assert that marriage gives them the right to 'an eye for an eye,'
and call themselves Christians. Did you ever