know you wanted a pal to-night. Do you mind
telling me why?"

For a moment she hesitated. Then she smiled. "If my frankness loses me a
pleasant comrade I shall regret my candor. But I do want to play fairly
with you. So hear then the bitter truth. I have been married five years,
and I have worked like a common slave to make myself beautiful and
winsome and irresistible to my husband. And you know that a wife can't do
it, if the husband isn't in the mind for it. And so to-night I am
starting a revolution. I do not want to struggle forever. I want to play
and be happy. I have no notion of making my husband jealous. That has not
even occurred to me. I just want to be joyful--to learn to be
joyful--regardless of him."

"Then may I be a disagreeable old preacher, and say one thing? You know
this may be fun, but sometimes it is dangerous. Human beings are not
machines, and often they make mistakes and fall in love, when they had
only meant to play. You would not find it at all pleasant to be married
to one man, and in love with another. And maybe you would not enjoy
having a husband and a lover in two persons, I am not trying to foretell
the future, or make unpleasant predictions--I am only sounding the
warning note."

Miriam considered this very solemnly. Then she said: "Well, I think I
should not mind. It does not seem to bother Lem to be married to me, and
at the same time be involved in stirring friendships with other people."

"Just one more sermon then, and I am through," he said, laughing. "It is
this. Men and women are very different. A man can play his head off with
a dozen women, and still stay in love with his wife, and want no one but
her. But a really nice woman, and you are awfully nice, can not have
love-affairs without love. When she loves a man, she wants him, and will
not have any one else. Your husband can have a dozen affairs, and still
want you. But if you have a pleasant affair--you may not want your
husband."

"Well, of course, Mr. Preacher, one must take a chance. And it is to be
only play, you know. That must be understood right in the start. I am
really not a bit advanced nor modern, nor anything. I have no forward
ideas in my head. I am just tired of trying to please my husband; I want
some one to please me. It does not seem to offer you much for your pains,
does it? But you may find me fairly amusing."

"I am sure of it," he agreed warmly. "And it is all settled, and we are
going to play to