telling, he would put the glamour
of his ideas over me. It seemed too seductively easy, and it was hard
for me to point out to him that, excellent and satisfactory as this
conversation was, it had the fatal defect of not being the way Felicia
and I talked. This didn't impress him at all; he merely invented
another conversation which didn't put Felicia in nearly as pleasing a
light, but gave me scope for firmness and dignity. I appeared really
very well in the face of her perverseness. Proud of myself, I was to
end by saying, without anger, but with decision:

"And, Felicia, if you can find no way of stopping this objectionable
young man's attentions, I _can_!"

Now all these pleasant plays of fancy were ended forever by my
acknowledging my weakness.

Felicia is fond of saying, "Men differ, but all husbands are alike." I
think she believes this to be an epigram. But O, Felicia, all husbands
are not alike; there are those who can take care of their wives, and
those who can't,--those who can say the word in time, and those who
must sit back weakly silent, morosely sucking their paws while their
wives burn their fingers.

Well, after all, I thought, perhaps it was better so. There would be
negative benefits. This way, at least, I shouldn't make Felicia cry. I
wouldn't say anything I should be sorry for afterwards, if I said
nothing. I had only to sit pusillanimously quiet until Saunders was
guilty of some impertinence, then there would be no more Saunders. I
ground my teeth and thanked God I was not jealous.

But I was soon undeceived if I thought that things were going along as
they had been. First there came a little, tiny, malformed, wordless
doubt, which I strangled as it was born; then a suspicion I wouldn't
see. I closed my eyes. In my loyalty I lied even to myself, but my
bolder self in his inexorable fashion made me look at it at last.

"Felicia," he asserted, "is keeping something from you. Felicia is
unhappy about something."

It was true, I couldn't deny it, I had ever so many proofs:

(1) I had caught Felicia watching me with melancholy, speculative
eyes. When I asked her what was the matter, she replied "Nothing."

(2) She had bursts of feverish unnatural gaiety.

(3) She didn't look well.

(4) Several times she started to tell me something, but decided not
to.

(5) She had moments of unwonted affection for me, I thought, as if she
were trying to make up to me for something.

Then came, more se