help a sensation of amusement, even in face of the condition
you describe (which is little short of tragic), as I recall the letter
Clarence wrote begging me to try and prevent, by fair means or foul, his
sister's marriage to old Mr. Volney.

That was two years before you and Clarence were married.

Elise, we all know, wedded for the money and position Mr. Volney gave,
in return for her young beauty.

Clarence and you were ideal lovers, seeing nothing in the world outside
of your own selves.

Yet Elise is quite contented, and Mr. Volney uses what little brain he
has left to exult over his possession of such a beautiful young wife.

Elise upholds his dignity and flatters him into a belief that he is a
great philanthropist and a social power, and in this way she has the
handling of his millions, which is her idea of happiness. She travels,
entertains, and poses for photographs and paintings in imported gowns,
and there is no rumour of discontent or divorce.

Meanwhile, Clarence, who was so opposed to her marriage because it was
loveless, is making a mess of his own love-match, through his jealousy.

You, who knew him to be insanely jealous as a lover, and who seemed to
be flattered with what you thought a proof of his devotion, appeal to me
now to know what to do with the husband who is destroying your love and
your happiness! Surely, if Elise knew of this she might well say, "He
laughs best who laughs last."

I know that you were absorbed in Clarence for the first year of your
married life, and that you gave no least cause for any jealousy, and I
know, as you say, that even then he was often morbid and unhappy over
nothing at all.

He was jealous even of girl friends and relatives, and if you attended a
matinee with one of them, he sulked the whole evening.

This was little more than he did as a lover, and you should have begun
in those days to reason him out of such moods.

You imagined then it was his mad love for you which caused his
unreasonable jealousy.

But jealousy is self-love, and selfishness lies at the root of such
conditions of mind as his.

A woman should say to a man who sulks or goes into tantrums when she
pays courteous attentions to relatives or acquaintances, "You are
lowering my ideal of you--I cannot love a man who will indulge such
unworthy moods. You insult my womanhood and doubt my principles by your
suspicions; you intimate that I have neither truth, or judgment, or
pride. You mu