the silence fell between my two
selves; the other one of me brooded over my inertia in the matter in
hand. At last he broke the silence and my awful vision of Felicia in
tears with:

"A man ought, you know, to look after his young wife. He shouldn't let
her make herself conspicuous with men, especially with a silly young
ass. It isn't being jealous," he concluded virtuously.

"Oh, no, we're not jealous," I agreed eagerly.

"You must speak to her."

"I can't."

"Why?" he demanded. And then it came out. Why? It had been staring me
in the face all along. I had known why, but I had shirked, as long as
I could, putting my confession of weakness into words. If I had never
seen Felicia cry, it would have been different. I might have talked
to her as man to man, but now:

"I can't, because it's impossible for me to interfere with Felicia."

I told him. There it was. It was constitutionally impossible for me to
interfere, in words anyway. It was like a sense lacking, but there
where my Felicia-preventing faculties should have been there was a
blank.

"Do you mean you would let her do anything?"

"Anything," I assented.

"Let her drift from you and not reach out your hand for her?"

"I couldn't raise my hand," I confessed sadly. There it was. I
couldn't do the disagreeable task known as "bringing her to her
senses." If Felicia couldn't feel that I didn't like what she did, I
couldn't, for the life of me, or even the life of Felicia, open my
mouth. And I believe there are a great many men like me in the world,
and more women, too. A certain kind of pain makes us dumb. A certain
pride freezes back the words that would come. The men of us have
perhaps seen our Felicias cry. And there's no use saying afterwards,
Why didn't you tell me? What, after all, is the use of words, when
it's written all over you in the very set of your coat that you're
hurt?

So now it was all settled. There was no use in my lying awake at night
any longer while my other self tickled his vanity by making up
admonitory conversations with Felicia, that went this way:

"Felicia," I was to say tenderly yet seriously, "I have something I
want to talk over with you."

Felicia would be impressed by my manner, and even a little frightened,
and she would murmur:

"Yes?" expectantly, meekly.

"Felicia," I was to continue, "I do not want you to think I am blaming
you. I am blaming myself for letting things go so far, for not
explaining things to